Oliva Ayala Abogados

Managing Partner: Ignacio Ayala Gómez
Partners: Javier Sánchez-Vera, María Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Laura Martínez-Sanz Collados
Number of lawyers: 11
Languages: Spanish, Catalán, English, French, German, Italian

Firm Overview:
Oliva – Ayala Abogados is a firm that provides legal advisory and defence services in special criminal cases, in what is known as business criminal law or economic criminal law. The profile of the lawyers who comprise the firm combine an excellent theoretical training with practical experience in complex legal proceedings. Horacio Oliva and Ignacio Ayala worked together for more than 25 years in criminal law and, following various changes and reinforcements to the organisational structure, the firm was refounded in 2005 to offer the market, mainly the corporate market, a highly qualified team of university graduates with broad professional experience. The firm is structured as a highly specialised law firm with a large and complete criminal law department at the disposal of corporate or private clients.
The exclusively criminal focus of the law firm provides the output clients require for complex situations, with full and personalised dedication. Regular participation by staff members in national and international congresses and symposiums ensures that they are up-to-date with the problems posed by an increasingly diverse practice. In turn, the abundant scientific publications of the firm’s lawyers bear witness to their capacity to seek innovative solutions to the specific problems raised by clients.
The law firm is located in Madrid, and provides integral service to the whole of Spain; it also has the collaboration of international reference law firms. The international procedural experience of the firm’s lawyers extends to proceedings in the USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and others, and also to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Court of Human Rights and other international jurisdictional bodies. This experience surpasses the barriers of Spanish Criminal Law, and opts for qualified advice with a clearly international vocation.
Oliva-Ayala Abogados opts for social commitment as one of the fundamental values of the law firm, and offers pro bono advisory services to individuals and non-profit-making organisations with limited access to legal services.Main Areas of Practice:The firm specialises in the defence of procedural or pre-procedural interests (defence or, as the case may be, complainant) in all areas of traditional criminal law, and has a substantial specialisation in business criminal law. Accordingly, by way of example:

Economic & Company Criminal Law:
■ Patrimonial
■ Insolvency
■ Corporate
■ Tax
■ Intellectual and industrial property
■ Securities market

Civil Service Crime:
■Bribery, corruption, embezzlement of public funds, influence peddling
■Environmental and town planning criminal law
■Professional negligence or others, including work accidents
■Misrepresentation (public, official, business and private documents)
■Criminal and civil protection of honour and other personal rights
■Procedural criminal protection of fundamental rights
■Reports and opinions on any area of criminal law

International Criminal Law:
■ Extradition
■ European arrest and handover warrant
■ International penitentiary law
Problems with criminal legality usually extend beyond national borders and require a multi-jurisdictional specialisation with an in-depth knowledge of the increasingly exhaustive international criminal legislation as well as legislation of the various European Union Member States and Community regulations.

Corporate Liability:
Preventive criminal defence, compliance policies. The firm helps Spanish and international clients, and reviews, develops and implements what has traditionally been called a preventive criminal defence policy. The current evolution of criminal law imposes the need to introduce programmes for legal compliance and the preservation of corporate criminal liability (criminal compliance). Prevention, detection and action are the three basic pillars that can limit the criminal liability of legal persons, their directors and employees.

International Work:
The law firm is located in Madrid, and provides integral service to the whole of Spain, it also has the collaboration of international reference law firms. The international procedural experience of the firm’s lawyers extends to proceedings in the USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and others, and also to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Court of Human Rights and other international jurisdictional bodies. This experience surpasses the barriers of Spanish Criminal Law, and opts for qualified advice with a clearly international vocation.

Clients:
It is the strict policy of the firm not to disclose the names of its clients. Its high net worth clients include high net worth individuals, company directors and board members, family groups, public and private companies in all kind of sectors, including multinational as well as medium and large sized Spanish and international companies.