GREECE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ioannis Giannidis and Natasha Kaisari, GIANNIDISKOURELEAS Law Firm
White-Collar Crime in Greece: An Introduction Amendments to Greek Criminal Law Since 2019, Greek criminal law has been subject to successive amendments, to both the Penal Code and the Code of Penal Procedure (CPP). This article focuses on certain amendments involving key criminal law issues, such as the rule of ex officio prosecution, the (procedural) principle of legality-mandatory pros - ecution and the non-recognition of corporate criminal liability, also noting their impact to date. Initiation of criminal proceedings for property offences Criminal proceedings are initiated by prosecutors, fol - lowing any kind of information that a criminal offence has been perpetrated. However, for certain offences explicitly defined in the Penal Code, prosecution pre - supposes a criminal complaint duly filed by the alleged victim (individual or legal entity) within a three-month period starting from the time they became aware of the criminal act and one of the perpetrators (hereinaf - ter “non ex officio offences”). Until the introduction of the new Penal Code in 2019, the criminal complaint-based system provided mainly for offences lacking strong public interest (eg, insignif - icant value embezzlement/ theft) or involving a close relationship between the victim and the perpetrator (eg, embezzlement/theft between spouses), whereas key property offences could be prosecuted irrespec - tive of whether the victim had filed a criminal com - plaint or not. However, the list of non ex officio offences was extended in 2019 and restricted again in 2024. From 1 July 2019 to 1 July 2024 The new Penal Code introduced in 2019 extended the list of non ex officio offences to include most property offences against individuals or private legal entities, even when punishable as felonies, with the exception of those committed against the State or public law legal entities or local authorities’ bodies. For cases already pending, the victims were granted a four-month period to declare that they wish criminal proceedings to continue.
For the offence of breach of trust specifically, there was a two-step amendment in 2019 to the procedur - al requirements for its prosecution. “Breach of trust” refers to offenders who are entrusted with the man - agement of another person’s/legal entity’s property and knowingly cause a loss to such property, acting in breach of diligent management rules. It is a typi - cal white-collar crime in Greece and the main source of criminal liability risk for boards of directors, CEOs and other officers holding a position of trust within a corporation. The 2019 Penal Code initially provided that misde - meanour breach of trust (ie, resulting in losses below the threshold of EUR120,000) was prosecuted only following a criminal complaint by the alleged victim; on the contrary, felony breach of trust remained an ex officio offence. Soon after that, the requirements for the prosecution of breach of trust were re-amended, albeit in a lim - ited scope. Since 18 November 2019, breach of trust against financial/credit institutions and organisations of the financial sector has been prosecuted only upon a criminal complaint by the victim (ie, the company). Again, for cases already pending, a specific provision was introduced prescribing that the above organisa - tions were entitled to declare that they wish criminal proceedings to continue, within four months from the time the new law was issued (ie, starting on 18 November 2019). The above amendments to the scope of non ex officio offences had a considerable impact on both pending and new cases. Some of the pending criminal cases for offences pre - viously prosecuted ex officio were dismissed due to the lack of a criminal complaint or a declaration for the continuation of criminal proceedings. For new cases, notably for complex fraud cases, it was doubtful whether the victims had adequate time within the strict three-month deadline to evaluate their position, take informed decisions on whether to pro - ceed with a criminal complaint and comply with the formal requirements of duly filing such a complaint.
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