Many corruption investigations do not begin with a suitcase full of cash. They begin with a gift, an invitation, an internal report or a tax audit. That is precisely where the danger lies. What is still played down inside the company as relationship management reads, in the investigation file, like an unlawful agreement. The 2024 national situation report on corruption published by the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) does record fewer registered offences than in the previous year. For anyone under investigation that is little comfort. A single suspicion can trigger a search, the freezing of assets and the loss of a professional livelihood, and a final conviction can additionally lead to exclusion from public contracts. Anyone who looks more closely at business criminal law quickly sees that corruption proceedings are almost never merely a reputational problem. They are criminal proceedings with serious consequences.
For the defence, the decisive question is therefore not one of moral outrage but of the legal dividing line between conduct that breaks the rules, a breach of duty under employment law and criminal bribery. That is where good defence work begins. A compliance breach is not a guilty verdict. But it is often the first stone the investigating authorities turn over. And there is rarely only one.
When compliance turns into criminal law
Compliance is meant to prevent risks. Criminal law steps in when the state no longer treats conduct as a mere breach of rules but as an attack on competition, on the integrity of public office or on someone else’s assets that deserves punishment. In everyday business these levels blur into one another. An improperly paid consultancy contract may breach internal guidelines, justify summary dismissal and at the same time give rise to an initial suspicion under section 299 of the German Criminal Code (StGB). Not every internal rule breach is therefore corruption. In the public sector, however, the threshold is low. Under section 331 StGB and section 333 StGB, a benefit that is demanded, accepted or granted in connection with the performance of official duties is already enough. A breach of official duty is required only by the more serious offences of taking and giving bribes under section 332 StGB and section 334 StGB. An invitation extended to a public official can therefore be relevant under criminal law even where no breach of duty can be established at all. For certain holders of elected office, in particular members of the Bundestag, the state parliaments and the European Parliament, section 108f StGB has applied in addition since June 2024. It covers paid representation of interests during the mandate, but only where this would breach the rules governing the legal position of the office holder.
This is exactly why the first look at a set of facts is often deceptive. Internal investigations initially work with suspicion, not certainty. So does the prosecution file. Corruption cases are argued from chains of circumstantial evidence. Payment flows, e-mails, diary entries, hotel invoices, sponsorship documents and chat histories only combine to form the picture that supports an indictment or a discontinuance. Anyone who talks too early usually completes that picture to the detriment of their own defence.
Are kickbacks a criminal offence
Yes. In the private sector, section 299 StGB makes taking and giving bribes in commercial practice a criminal offence. The provision has two routes. Under subsection 1 number 1 and subsection 2 number 1, the issue is a benefit given in return for unfair preferential treatment in competition when purchasing goods or services. Under subsection 1 number 2 and subsection 2 number 2, it is enough that an employee or agent receives a benefit, without the company’s consent, in return for doing or omitting something when purchasing goods or services and thereby breaching his duties towards the company. This second route does not turn every internal rule breach into corruption either. It requires a benefit, a quid pro quo and a breach of duty specifically in the purchase of goods or services. In both cases the decisive factor is not the gift but the unlawful agreement, that is the exchange of a benefit for unfair preferential treatment or for conduct in breach of duty. The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) does not require an express arrangement. It is sufficient that the future preferential treatment is recognisable and defined in broad outline as to its substance, so that it can be distinguished from customary relationship management and socially acceptable courtesies. Where the agreement cannot be established in detail, the circumstantial evidence for and against it must be assessed in a complete overall evaluation. The BGH judgment of 6 July 2022, case no. 2 StR 50/21, is particularly important for this overall evaluation.
This is frequently where the defence finds its first starting point. Not every payment is a kickback. Not every business relationship is unfair. And not every subsequent award of a contract retrospectively proves a criminal quid pro quo. If several plausible explanations remain after the overall evaluation, the risk lies with the prosecution and not with the accused. That applies all the more where services were actually rendered, remunerated at market rates and disclosed internally. The overall evaluation does, however, cut both ways. In case 2 StR 50/21 the BGH set aside acquittals precisely because the regional court had assessed the individual indications in isolation rather than in combination.
At the same time, the defence must not cling to false certainties. The objection that one was merely maintaining a business contact only helps if that sentence survives contact with the actual material. The same applies to consent given at the top of the company. In its decision of 28 July 2021, case no. 1 StR 506/20, the BGH held that in the case of legal entities the shareholders are to be regarded as the owners of the business. Criminal liability then turns on whether an employee or agent is acting or whether the conduct of one shareholder is attributable, through the consent of the other shareholders, to the owners of the business collectively. That is not a licence, and it is not a general consent defence. In its decision of 26 January 2022, case no. 1 StR 460/21, the BGH clarified that the earlier decision concerned the distinction between employees and agents on the one hand and shareholders on the other, and the attribution of their conduct. Free and fair competition is a public interest, and a company cannot waive it. Anyone who wishes to rely on consent must be able to prove it convincingly. It must not surface for the first time when the search officers are already standing in the hallway.
In the public sector the position is stricter. Civil servants, other public officials and persons with special public service obligations are subject to sections 331 to 335 StGB. There the threshold for criminal liability has deliberately been set lower, because what is protected is not only assets but the integrity of state action. The scale such proceedings can reach is illustrated by the Frankfurt corruption complex, which the BGH dealt with in two separate decisions under the same case number, 1 StR 475/23. By decision of 1 April 2025, case no. 1 StR 475/23, it essentially dismissed the defendant’s appeal on points of law against his conviction for 86 counts of taking bribes, 54 counts of breach of trust and tax evasion, discontinuing only a few individual tax counts. By judgment of 9 July 2025, case no. 1 StR 475/23, it amended the confiscation order against a bribe giver to his detriment on the prosecution’s appeal.
Gifts, invitations and the acceptance of benefits
Whether gifts and invitations are a criminal offence, and when a public official commits the offence of accepting a benefit, are among the most frequent questions in this field. The honest answer is uncomfortable. German criminal law knows no fixed value threshold below which everything is harmless. It is precisely this hope that leads to wrong decisions in practice. The threshold for gifts under tax law is not a criminal law safe harbour. What counts under criminal law is the occasion, transparency, the function of the recipient, the timing of the benefit and its factual connection with a business or official decision.
For public officials the standard is particularly strict. A dinner, a hotel upgrade or a VIP ticket can become a problem as soon as it is connected with the performance of official duties and has not been approved. Section 331 subsection 3 StGB and section 333 subsection 3 StGB permit approval by the competent authority only within the limits of its powers for the offences of accepting and granting a benefit, not for benefits given in return for official acts in breach of duty. For the recipient, section 331 subsection 3 StGB additionally requires that they did not demand the benefit. In the private sector there is more room for socially acceptable courtesy, but even there only as long as the benefit does not take on the character of a quid pro quo. It is exactly this distinction between permissible relationship management and criminal influence that the BGH emphasised in its judgment of 6 July 2022, case no. 2 StR 50/21.
Anyone who takes compliance seriously therefore does not simply let invitations, sponsorship, travel expenses and consultancy contracts run their course. Clean approval processes, documented authorisations and clear responsibilities are not administrative decoration. Later on they are often the difference between a plausible explanation and an indictment that makes the headlines.
Breach of trust, criminal tax law and slush funds
Corruption allegations rarely come alone. They are frequently accompanied by breach of trust (Untreue), sham invoices, hidden commission schemes or follow-on allegations under criminal tax law. Anyone who books a kickback as a business expense quickly builds a second set of proceedings alongside the first. Under section 4 subsection 5 sentence 1 number 10 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG), benefits whose granting constitutes a criminal or regulatory offence may not reduce taxable profit. The same provision obliges courts, public prosecutors and tax authorities to inform one another of corresponding suspicions. The road from a tax audit to the public prosecutor is therefore short. From a defence perspective this matters, because the file can then no longer be confined to the corruption allegation. Suddenly the case is also about section 266 StGB, about bookkeeping, about pricing and about whatever a tax audit brings to light. Anyone familiar with criminal tax law knows this mixture well.
How closely corruption and breach of trust are linked is shown by the BGH judgment of 3 July 2024, case no. 2 StR 453/23. According to the case law of the BGH, where kickbacks are agreed a financial loss to the principal is regularly to be assumed, because at least the amount the contracting partner spends on the kickback could also have been granted to the principal as a price reduction. In that case the BGH set aside a judgment that had denied breach of trust, because the regional court had not examined whether the contracts could have been awarded at a lower price. Two things follow for the defence. The loss is not a formality that follows automatically from the mere allegation of hidden payments. It must be established concretely, with findings on how the price was formed and on the real possibility of a cheaper deal. At the same time, the economic reasoning behind this inference is firmly established in the case law, so the defence needs to address it concretely. This is exactly where solid criminal defence parts company with mere indignation. Business crime cases are not decided by slogans but by robust findings of fact.
What to do when accused of corruption
Anyone who receives a summons in a corruption matter should take their foot off the accelerator before making any statement. The right to silence is not a tactical luxury but a fundamental right of the accused. Section 136 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) requires the accused to be informed that he is free to respond to the accusation or to say nothing about the matter, and that he may consult a defence lawyer at any time. In practice, silence is frequently the most sensible first reaction. At that stage the public prosecutor almost always knows the case better than the accused does. At least, the prosecutor knows the version he currently believes to be correct. The position of witnesses is different. A person summoned as a witness has no general right to silence, but may refuse to answer questions that would incriminate him and may be accompanied by a lawyer.
The second step is access to the file. Without the file, every defence is blind. Defence counsel’s right to inspect the file follows from section 147 StPO. During the investigation, access may still be refused as long as it could jeopardise the purpose of the investigation. Only with the file can one examine whether the case really concerns section 299 StGB, offences by public officials, breach of trust under section 266 StGB, tax consequences or all of these at once. In business criminal law, the legal label attached to the allegation is rarely the real problem. The problem is the combination.
If it comes to a search, the same line applies. No spontaneous statements, no informal chats, no voluntary explanations that do the investigators’ work for them. The opposite direction is just as important. Documents and data must not be deleted, altered or put out of reach, even if they appear incriminating. Anyone who tidies up after a search risks additional charges and hands the prosecution a piece of evidence that weighs more heavily than the document itself. Court orders, seizure inventories and any data carriers taken away must be properly documented. A third party who is not accused in the proceedings and has an object being sought in their custody is in principle obliged to hand it over under section 95 StPO. In criminal proceedings, accused persons cannot be compelled to make self-incriminating statements or actively contribute to their own conviction. They must, however, tolerate lawful searches and seizures. Only certain documents arising from the relationship of trust with a professional bound by confidentiality are exempt from seizure under section 97 StPO, supplemented by the protection of section 160a StPO. That protection is important, but narrower than many believe. In the context of an internal investigation, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, BVerfG) held on 27 June 2018, case no. 2 BvR 1405/17 and others, that it is constitutionally unobjectionable to confine the seizure prohibition in section 97 subsection 1 number 3 StPO to the relationship between the lawyer and the person accused in the specific proceedings. On that basis a company is protected only if it already has a position comparable to that of an accused. A company that commissions an investigation merely as a precaution cannot rely on that protection.
Internal investigations are even more delicate. Company lawyers represent the interests of the company. The interests of the company, its management and individual employees can diverge, and the company’s lawyer does not automatically represent every individual personally. Anyone who could come under suspicion themselves needs their own independent defence in this situation. A witness questioned in criminal proceedings may refuse answers that would expose them or a relative protected by law to the risk of criminal or regulatory proceedings under section 55 StPO. Under section 68b StPO, the witness may be assisted by a lawyer. Their procedural role and any conflicts of interest must be kept clearly distinct. The pages on defence strategy and on the specialist lawyer for criminal law set out the next steps.
The first days after a summons or a search often shape the further course of proceedings more than any later stage. Digital evidence in particular puts the accused under pressure. Work phones, private chats, cloud accounts, diaries, travel expense claims and accounting data act like a mosaic in corruption cases. Each piece looks banal on its own, but the sum quickly becomes the prosecution’s narrative. Technical restraint is therefore also required. What must be handed over, what may initially only be preserved, and which voluntary statements would merely make the investigators’ work easier must be examined legally in each individual case. Restraint does not mean disposal. Nervousness is a poor adviser, at the keyboard as much as in the interview room.
Discontinuance, negotiated agreements and the right timing
Not every corruption case ends in a conviction. In business criminal law in particular, discontinuance subject to conditions under section 153a StPO, which is possible for less serious offences with the accused’s consent and normally also the court’s consent, provided the conditions can remove the public interest in prosecution and the degree of guilt does not stand in the way, narrowed indictments and negotiated agreements under section 257c StPO play a considerable role. Whether such a route is open in a particular case depends on the statutory requirements and the necessary consents. It cannot be promised. The mistake usually lies not in the willingness to reach a pragmatic solution but in the wrong timing. Anyone who confesses prematurely, before the state of the file, the confiscation risk and the employment law consequences have been clarified, surrenders unnecessarily. Anyone who negotiates too late often loses the room for manoeuvre the proceedings previously offered.
A negotiated agreement in criminal proceedings is not a law-free zone either. Section 257c subsection 1 sentence 2 StPO expressly leaves the court’s duty to establish the truth untouched. By decision of 20 December 2023, case no. 2 BvR 2103/20, the BVerfG set aside a judgment that had relied solely on a confession made in the context of a negotiated agreement without verifying its accuracy. A confession must not be adopted blindly. For the defence this means in practice that a negotiated agreement may rest only on careful work on the file. It is a tool, not a declaration of surrender.
Confiscation, corporate fines and the competition register
In corruption cases the sentence is often not the greatest risk. Confiscation is frequently more dangerous. Under section 73 StGB, whatever was obtained through or for the offence is confiscated. Under section 73b StGB, confiscation can also affect third parties and companies. When the value is determined, expenses are deducted under section 73d StGB, but not what was spent or used for the offence or its preparation. The BGH gave this concrete shape for bribery offences in its judgment of 9 July 2025, case no. 1 StR 475/23. Anyone who obtains a contract through bribery does not have to surrender the entire turnover. The expenses incurred in performing the contract properly, such as staff and material costs, remain deductible, so that in the result it is the profit that is skimmed off. The bribe itself, deliberately spent on the offence, is not deductible. That is exactly why a kickback can hurt twice economically. It has been paid, and it is left out of account in the confiscation calculation.
Anyone who works with crude slogans here makes it too easy for themselves. Confiscation does not follow a simple arithmetic trick. The question is what was actually obtained, to whom it is attributable and which flows of money can concretely be established. Under the judgment of 9 July 2025, profits passed on to the offender through an intermediate company remain liable to confiscation if the transfer amounts to a distribution of the proceeds of the offence. Conversely, only what actually flowed to the person concerned may be skimmed off. The BVerfG emphasised this in a narcotics case by decision of 20 October 2023, case no. 2 BvR 499/23, objecting to a confiscation order that was not based on sound findings as to the actual inflow of funds. The same principle applies in corruption proceedings. For the defence this is not a sideshow but often the main economic issue.
In addition, there is the threat of corporate fines under section 30 of the German Act on Regulatory Offences (OWiG) and allegations of breach of supervisory duties under section 130 OWiG. A corporate fine has a punitive component and a component that removes the economic benefit. Under section 30 subsection 3 in conjunction with section 17 subsection 4 OWiG, that benefit is calculated on a net basis. In its judgment of 27 April 2022, case no. 5 StR 278/21, the BGH therefore accepted the deduction of bribe payments connected with the offence when calculating this component. This differs from the criminal confiscation explained above. Once a corporate fine has been imposed, section 30 subsection 5 OWiG precludes an additional confiscation of proceeds under sections 73 or 73c StGB or section 29a OWiG against the same entity for the same act. For companies doing business with the public sector there is a further lever. Under section 123 of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB), contracting authorities must exclude a company if a person in a management position has been finally convicted of certain offences, including section 299 StGB and sections 333 and 334 StGB, or if a fine under section 30 OWiG has been finally imposed on the company for such an offence. Mere suspicion does not trigger this mandatory exclusion. However, subject to proportionality, a discretionary exclusion under section 124 GWB may be possible even before a final decision, for example where grave professional misconduct calling the company’s integrity into question is established by appropriate evidence or where there are sufficient indications of anti-competitive agreements. The final corruption decisions described above are entered in the competition register (Wettbewerbsregister) where the requirements of section 2 WRegG are met. Exclusion can be averted through self-cleaning under section 125 GWB, that is by compensating the damage, actively cooperating in clarifying the facts and taking concrete technical, organisational and personnel measures. Early deletion from the competition register can be applied for from the Federal Cartel Office under section 8 of the German Competition Register Act (WRegG). Anyone who begins these measures only once the entry has been made loses valuable time, because self-cleaning must be proven and cannot simply be asserted after the event. The page on confiscation of the proceeds of crime explains more.
Corruption in the healthcare sector
Corruption in the healthcare sector is a particularly sensitive field. Doctors, dentists, pharmacists and other members of health professions requiring state-regulated training are subject to the special offences in sections 299a and 299b StGB. They do not cover every purchase and every form of cooperation. They cover benefits given in return for unfair preferential treatment when prescribing medicines, remedies, medical aids or medical devices, when purchasing medicines, medical aids or medical devices for direct use by the health professional or one of their professional assistants, and when referring patients or examination material. Within that framework, training events, post-marketing studies, the use of equipment, discount schemes, patient steering and cooperation with medical supply stores or laboratories quickly come into focus. In such proceedings the defence must draw a particularly precise line between permissible cooperation and criminal preferential treatment.
How such arrangements can end in court is shown by the BGH judgment of 21 March 2024, case no. 3 StR 163/23. A doctor in the statutory health insurance system had agreed with a medical supply store to receive a share of turnover for referring patients. The BGH essentially upheld her conviction for taking bribes in the healthcare sector and for commercial gang fraud, but reduced the confiscation amount because part of the benefits skimmed off related to acts that were not the subject of the judgment. The judgment combines corruption law with fraud and confiscation and shows that an appeal in such proceedings can succeed on individual points without removing the conviction itself. For doctors in private practice, hospital doctors, medical care centres and industry partners this is not a marginal specialist problem. It is a core area of modern criminal risk. Further information can be found on the page on medical criminal law.
Compliance as protection and as defence
An effective compliance management system does not prevent crime with the certainty of a law of nature. But it often prevents the second disaster, namely the thesis that the company had simply looked the other way without any plan. For corporate fines under section 30 OWiG, the BGH stated in its judgment of 9 May 2017, case no. 1 StR 265/16, that it is relevant to the assessment of the fine to what extent the company has fulfilled its duty to prevent infringements originating from within its sphere and has installed an effective compliance management system. Subsequent improvements to internal processes can also play a role. In its judgment of 27 April 2022, case no. 5 StR 278/21, the BGH approved a regional court’s decision to take a company’s self-cleaning process, including comprehensive compliance measures and a whistleblower system, into account in the company’s favour when assessing the punitive part of the fine. No entitlement to immunity from fines follows from this. Compliance is a factor in the assessment, not a ground for remission.
For practice this means two things. Before the crisis, a company needs clear rules on gifts, invitations, sponsorship, third-party funding, sales partners and whistleblower systems. After the crisis, it needs an honest review, personnel consequences, revised processes and a defence strategy that does not begin only in the courtroom. Documents created after the event to cast old transactions in a more favourable light are not part of this. They make the situation worse. Prevention and defence are not opposites. In a well-handled business crime case they are two sides of the same file. Anyone who wants to approach the subject structurally will find the right interface between prevention and crisis response in criminal law advice for companies.
There is a further point that is often underestimated in everyday practice. Since whistleblower systems and internal reporting offices have become more institutionalised, not only the chance of early clarification has increased but also the risk of premature suspicion. A good compliance system must therefore not only report but also examine properly. Anyone who treats every report as a finished verdict creates the next source of liability themselves.
Criminal defence lawyers in Nuremberg for corruption allegations
Anyone confronted with a corruption allegation usually needs not a lengthy theory but a clear line for the first days. That line begins with silence and access to the file, continues with a review of the search, the freezing of assets and any seizures, and requires a clear separation between the interests of the company and the defence of the individual. And it asks whether an unlawful agreement is convincingly proven or whether only a one-sided investigative hypothesis is on the table. In corruption matters in particular, this difference is decisive.
That applies not only to classic corporate mandates. Managing directors, sales managers, purchasing managers, doctors, pharmacists and employees in the public sector also quickly come under personal pressure, even though internal communications had previously assured them that the matter would be cleared up together. In criminal proceedings that sentence counts for little. What counts is whose interests are being represented and who really knows the file.
For Rudolph Rechtsanwälte in Nuremberg, the focus has for many years been on criminal law, business criminal law and medical criminal law. In urgent cases, contact should not be made only when the deadline for a statement is about to expire. Anyone affected by an internal investigation, a summons, a search or the freezing of assets needs a robust defence at an early stage. The direct route is via contact or the defence counsel emergency call.
Corruption is not a trivial offence. But an allegation of corruption is not an automatic route to conviction either. Good criminal defence separates assumption from proof, agitation from substance and internal disorder from criminal influence. That is exactly where it starts.