Practice areas
Environmental offences
Violations of environmental regulations and requirements can lead to fines or criminal penalties. An environmental criminal defense in this area increasingly turns on technical detail, and the number of investigation proceedings has grown in recent years.
About Environmental offences
sections 324 et seq. StGB
What it is about
Environmental criminal law is a sensitive area of law. Damage to natural resources is perceived today as socially harmful, and the authorities look accordingly closely. The following allegations are particularly frequent:
- Water pollution (section 324 StGB)
- Soil pollution (section 324a StGB)
- Air pollution (section 325 StGB)
- Unauthorised handling of dangerous waste (section 326 StGB)
- Unauthorised operation of plants (section 327 StGB)
Why administrative law is decisive
In environmental criminal law, whether a conduct is criminal is determined by public environmental law. It is the permit, the condition or the limit value that determines where criminality begins.
The public prosecutor office can rarely answer this question from its own expertise. Therefore, investigations are often supplemented by expert opinions, which then form the core of the proceedings.
What we do for you
Defence in environmental criminal law begins with the legal situation: it must be precisely determined and checked for evidentiary problems. At the very beginning, the question arises as to whether the correct persons are even being investigated.
- Clarification of who was actually responsible for the process in the business
- Examination of the underlying permits, conditions and limit values
- Critical analysis of the expert opinions
- Inspection of files before a statement is made
- Coordination of the defence with parallel administrative proceedings
Arrested or questioned? Call us before you make a statement.
Frequently asked questions
Why does criminality depend on administrative law?
Because environmental criminal law is linked to public environmental law. Whether an act was permitted follows from permits, conditions and limit values. Only when these have been violated can criminality be considered.
It is only about a condition. Can that really become a criminal case?
Yes. Violations of administrative regulations and conditions can lead to fines or criminal penalties. How heavy a violation weighs depends on the affected protected good and the extent.
Who is liable in a company for an environmental violation?
This is often the first question in the proceedings. It is not uncommon for investigations to be directed against persons who were actually not responsible for the process. We therefore check early how responsibilities were distributed in the business.
What role do expert opinions play?
A central one. Because the evaluation requires technical and scientific knowledge, investigations mostly rely on experts. Their assumptions and measurements are an important starting point for the defence.
This information is general in nature and does not replace advice on an individual case.
Further practice areas
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