Economic crime defence for a company turns on three early decisions: who speaks for the company, what is handed over, and how the parallel exposure (tax, corporate, reputational) is managed from day one. Lodline advises companies and their people from the first contact with the Ekobrottsmyndigheten through to the close of proceedings, with defined pieces of work offered at a fixed price.
Who this concerns
This concerns companies and their directors, officers and employees once an investigation by the Swedish Economic Crime Authority (Ekobrottsmyndigheten) touches the business: a bookkeeping question, a suspected tax offence, a procurement or subsidy matter, or an employee named as a suspect. It also concerns a foreign parent whose Swedish subsidiary is drawn in, and a board that has to keep the company running while the investigation proceeds.
What the practice covers
The practice covers the company's position when the authority makes contact, the handling of documents and interviews, the overlap between a criminal matter and the parallel tax case, the exposure of individuals as distinct from the company, and the corporate fine (företagsböter). Under Swedish law as it currently stands, the company and the individual can have different, and sometimes conflicting, interests from the outset, and separating them early is what protects both.
Where a matter has an international element, a foreign counterparty, assets abroad or a parent company outside Sweden, that is addressed as part of the work rather than treated as a separate question. Related risk often sits in the compliance, sanctions and cyber security practice, which runs alongside this one.
How a matter runs
A matter runs through a set sequence: a preliminary assessment of the position, a defined scope of work with a fixed price where the piece of work allows it, the work itself, and a clear hand-back of what was decided and what remains open. The firm is a Swedish law firm; it is not an advokatbyrå and makes no promise as to the outcome. Response to an enquiry is within two hours on a working day.
What the library covers
The insights below answer the questions that come up before a matter starts. Read them in any order; each sets out what to do first and where self-help ends.
- Dealing with the economic crime authority
- Employees as suspects and the company's position
- Alleged bookkeeping offences, step by step
- Tax offences and the parallel tax case
- How corporate fines are set
- Media, disclosure and the listed company
Where it usually goes wrong
A company can and should prepare internally: secure the records, identify who was involved, and map the parallel tax and corporate exposure. It stops being an internal exercise the moment the authority requests an interview, seizes material, or names an individual, because from that point every answer given shapes the case. That is where a defined scope of work, and in some matters a fixed-price assessment of the company's position, is the sensible next step.