Victims as private prosecutors: the Spanish model for asset recovery in cryptocurrency fraud cases

Cryptocurrency fraud has become the form of fraud that causes the greatest financial losses.

For victims, securing a criminal conviction is rarely the sole objective: recovering the stolen assets is usually the real priority. Hence, there is a clear interest in playing an active role in the criminal proceedings.

However, in many legal systems, such participation is limited. In countries such as Germany, victims have certain procedural rights, but they have little influence over the course of the investigation. Spain, by contrast, offers a distinctly different model.

With the aim of analysing these and other differences between the Spanish and German criminal justice systems, Mirjam Steinfeld speaks with Héctor Sbert, a partner at ECIJA in Barcelona, in a new episode of the Criminal Compliance Podcast.

Starting with an explanation of how the Spanish criminal procedure works – a hybrid system combining elements of the inquisitorial and adversarial models – and the roles played by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Investigating Judge, Héctor Sbert explains how the institution of the private prosecution enables victims to drive the proceedings forward in a way that is hardly comparable to the Nebenklage in the German system.

The conversation also addresses the role of the Office for the Recovery and Management of Assets (ORGA), the regime of criminal liability for legal persons set out in Article 31 bis of the Criminal Code, and compliance programmes that can protect companies when they find themselves simultaneously in the position of both victim and subject of an investigation.

A comparative analysis that highlights the potential of a system geared towards the active participation of victims in asset recovery, whilst also pointing out the limitations it presents in practice.

Access the podcast via the following link: Criminal Compliance Podcast.