Crimes against the public administration and construction crimes

Regarding crimes against the public administration, the Telchini-Mayr-D'Abbiero Law Firm has successfully defended public administrators, political representatives and businessmen.

Crimes against the public administration governed by the Italian Penal Code (Art. 314 et seq), punish conduct and detrimental omissions of the principles of impartiality and good performance required in public action.

Even the company, when it comes into contact with public offices while carrying out its business, can be a source of disturbance of these fundamental principles or be the victim of illegal behaviour committed by public administrators.

In order to prevent the commission of crimes against the Public Administration, it is a good rule for every company to have an organizational model pursuant to Legislative Decree no.231/2001. This is even more true since this conduct involves serious responsibilities for organizations and companies that have failed to adopt adequate preventive procedures.

This is a highly articulated matter on which the Legislator intervened with subsequent penalties, including the possibility of seizing and then confiscating the personal assets of those responsible for serious crimes, as is already the case for members of organized criminal associations, and providing for heavy financial penalties for the legal entities involved.

Some crimes against the public administration assume that the agent has specific public qualifications, as defined in Articles 357 and 358 of the Italian Penal Code (public official and person in charge of public service) without excluding the involvement of the extraneus, that is, the private sector. Consider, for example, embezzlement (Article 314 of the Italian Penal Code), extortion (Article 317 of the Italian Penal Code), abuse of office (Article 323 of the Italian Penal Code), use of inventions or discoveries known by reason of office (Article 325 of the Italian Penal Code) , disclosure and use of official secrets (Article 326 of the Italian Penal Code), omission of official acts (Article 328 of the Italian Penal Code).

Other crimes provide for the punishment of the private individual. See, for example, those governed by Articles 316 bis of the Italian Penal Code (embezzlement to the detriment of the State) and 316 ter of the Italian Penal Code (undue receipt of disbursements to the detriment of the State).

There are also necessarily multi-subject cases, in which the public official or public service officer contributes to the commission of the crime along with the private individual, as in the case of corruption crimes and judicial corruption.

Cases aimed at guaranteeing the regular performance of public tenders are of particular relevance: disruption of the freedom of auctions (Article 353 of the Italian Penal Code), disruption of the freedom of the contractor selection procedure (Article 353 bis of the Italian Penal Code), fraud in public supplies (Article 356 of the Italian Penal Code).

Defence regarding urban planning and construction crimes

The Firm takes on the defence of building and urban planning crimes set forth in Italian Presidential Decree no. 380/2001, often accompanied by violations of the discipline set forth in Italian Legislative Decree no. 42 of 22 January 2004, known as the Heritage Conservation Act.

Often, in cases concerning the hypothesis of construction abuse, further disputes are entered against the public administrators who are called to answer for specific cases such as abuse or omission of official acts, which would have caused the violation. Therefore, it is essential to be able to count on broader professional skills in order to be able to analyse the individual lines of action, both public and private.

These are often processes originating from disputes of an administrative nature, following disputes by the authority that involve the transmission of notification of the crime to the Public Prosecutor responsible for the territory.

In such cases, collaboration with the technical consultants as well as with lawyers specialising in administrative law, sometimes already appointed by the client during the dispute against the local authority, is particularly fruitful. The Firm makes use of the external collaboration of specialised attorneys and eminent and authoritative consultants with whom it has successfully collaborated for decades.