GREECE: An Introduction to White-Collar Crime
Trends and Challenges in White-Collar Crime in Greece
White-collar crime has been high on the agenda of the legislator and the law enforcement authorities in Greece.
Recent legislation
Through Law 5090/2024, a hybrid form of corporate criminal liability has been introduced in relation to all bribery offences, including trading of influence. Article 134 of Law 5090/2024 stipulates that legal entities whose directors, employees or associated professionals bribe public officials or politicians on behalf of or to the benefit of the latter are subject to monetary penalties ranging from EUR50,000 to EUR10 million. Where the net profit of the entity in the relevant year exceeds EUR10 million, penalties can reach double the net profit of the entity for the year. Additional sanctions, such as exclusion from public tenders or revocation of the business permit, are also applicable.
Penalties shall be imposed by the criminal court that hears the case against individuals who are charged with bribery but do not require the conviction of the latter. The affected legal entity has defence-like rights throughout the proceedings, including the right to appeal unfavourable judgments. It can also admit to the charges in exchange for more lenient penalties.
The new legislation signifies a break from the long-established tradition of non-criminal liability of legal entities in Greece, with a view to complying with the country’s international obligations in the anti-corruption area.
However, its episodic character is expected to create serious problems in relation to multiple sanctions and the non bis in idem and proportionality principles. Indeed, in parallel with the above criminal penalties, so-called administrative sanctions of a similar nature may be imposed against the legal entity in question, including by the Anti-Money Laundering Agency for bribery-related offences. Such parallel and no less harsh sanctions are in no way co-ordinated with the newly introduced criminal ones, as required by the ECHR and CJEU case law (see, for example, the CJEU judgment of 14 September 2023 in the Volkswagen/Dieselgate case, C-27/22).
Non-payment of administrative fines imposed on a legal entity constitutes – except for tax-related fines – a separate criminal offence for which the legal entity’s directors are held liable. The offence is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. If the unpaid fine exceeds EUR200.000, a minimum sentence of three years is applicable. It should be noted that the sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code were amended last year in the context of the “tough on crime” agenda of the government. Under the amended provisions, all sentences exceeding two years cannot be suspended or converted into fines and must be partly served in custody. Company directors are therefore exposed to significant criminal risks in relation to unpaid fines imposed by various enforcement authorities such as Customs, the Anti-Money Laundering Agency, the Capital Markets Commission or the Competition Commission for alleged offences within their scope. The same holds true for health and safety, environmental and other business-related offences, such as the non-prevention of money laundering practices or bribery.
In the above-described risk-inflated business environment, companies are called to establish robust compliance procedures in order to effectively prevent and detect unlawful behaviour of their directors, employees or associated professionals and avoid sanctions that may threaten their existence.
Enforcement activities
In February 2025, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Athens filed indictments against a total of 64 suspects on charges of fraud involving agricultural funds. According to the indictment, between 2017 and 2020, stockbreeders, mainly from Crete, received payments from EU agricultural funds destined to help the sector by submitting false declarations of ownership, or falsified lease contracts for plots of land. Another 22 individuals were indicted on similar charges in January 2025, while 14 other suspects were charged last year. The estimated overall damage to EU financial interests exceeds EUR2.9 million. The EPPO investigations were supported by the financial crimes prosecution department of the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime of the Hellenic police.
The above case is characteristic of the enforcement activity of the EPPO in Greece, which handles a significant number of EU-related financial crimes, including an ongoing large-scale investigation into a complex VAT carousel fraud scheme based on the sale of popular electronic goods – via e-shops – handled by companies in various countries. Some of the e-shops are said to issue and circulate false invoices of non-existent online sales, enabling the products to be transferred without payment of VAT or other taxes. The EPPO’s action (“Operation Admiral”) encompasses Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain, and the estimated damages amount to EUR2.2 billion. Due to the scope and urgency of the case, freezing orders were issued against a significant number of Greek companies and individuals. Some of them have filed complaints challenging the factual or legal basis of the freezing orders, as well as the proportionality of their scope.
Case law
The Plenary of Areios Pagos, Greece’s Court of Cassation, issued an important judgment on 5 December 2024 (No 4/2024) in a case involving the interception of telecommunications in the context of an investigation into arms trafficking. The Court ruled that the strict requirements that must be met for the lawful interception of private telephone or electronic communications in real time (seriousness of the alleged offence, judicial approval, limited time scope, etc), and the admissibility of such evidence, also apply in relation to past communications stored in mobile telephones or other electronic devices. It remains to be seen how this judgment will interact with the ECJ judgment in the EncroChat case of 30 April 2024 (Case C-670/22, MN).