Your partner, for every (anti)fraud case

Every company with fifty employees or more must have an internal reporting channel through which employees can report breaches, together with a procedure to follow up on those reports. The channel is set up after consultation with the social partners. The threshold of fifty is calculated on the average number of employees in the previous calendar year.

Companies with fewer than fifty employees are exempt. That exemption does not apply to companies caught by the anti-money laundering legislation or by the rules on financial services, products and markets: they must always have a reporting channel, whatever their size.

Your rights differ depending on whether you are questioned as a suspect or as a witness. The summons normally states in which capacity you are being questioned.

You are questioned as a suspect

Anyone questioned as a suspect has a number of rights (article 47bis, § 2, of the Belgian Code of Criminal Procedure). You receive a brief statement of the facts in advance. You may remain silent and you cannot be compelled to incriminate yourself. What you say can be used as evidence against you.

If the offence can lead to a custodial sentence, you also have the right to a confidential consultation with a lawyer before the interview and to the assistance of that lawyer during the interview. If you have not been arrested, you must arrange that assistance yourself.

If your rights are set out in the written summons, the law assumes that you have had the opportunity to consult a lawyer. So do not wait until the day of the interview. If those rights are not in the summons, you may, as an adult, postpone the interview once in order to exercise them.

You are questioned as a witness

A witness has rights as well (article 47bis, § 1, of the Belgian Code of Criminal Procedure). You receive a brief statement of the facts you are questioned about in advance. You cannot be compelled to incriminate yourself and your statements can be used as evidence. You may ask that your answers are recorded word for word, that a particular investigative measure is carried out or that a particular person is questioned, and you may use documents and have them added to the file.

A witness has no legal right to the assistance of a lawyer during the interview. Nothing stops you from consulting a lawyer beforehand, and that is advisable as soon as your own position in the file is not entirely clear.

If it appears during the interview that facts may be held against you, the interviewer must tell you so and inform you of the rights of a suspect, including the right to silence and the right to the assistance of a lawyer. If you are in doubt during the interview, ask expressly in which capacity you are being questioned.

Yes, but only under certain conditions. A company may engage a private investigator to look into its own employee only when a written policy expressly and transparently states that such investigations in the workplace are possible, and under which rules. Without that policy, the investigator may not accept the assignment.

That sits in article 65 of the Belgian Act of 18 May 2024 regulating private investigation, which took effect on 16 December 2024. Companies have two years from that date, so until 16 December 2026, to put such a policy in place. Alongside it, the general rules on the protection of employees' privacy continue to apply in full.

A lawyer falls under the anti-money laundering act in two cases.

First, when the lawyer assists a client in preparing or carrying out transactions concerning: the purchase or sale of real estate or of a business; the management of money, securities or other assets of the client; the opening or management of bank, savings or securities accounts; the organisation of contributions for the creation, operation or management of companies; or the creation, operation or management of companies, foundations, trusts or similar structures.

Second, when the lawyer acts in the name of the client and on the client's behalf in a financial transaction or a property transaction.

Outside those cases, the identification and reporting duties do not apply. Anyone who only defends a client in legal proceedings or determines the client's legal position falls outside the reporting duty as well. The ban on receiving more than 3,000 euros in cash, by contrast, always applies, to every lawyer and every file.

Yes. A company is criminally liable for offences that are intrinsically linked to the realisation of its object or to the defence of its interests, or that, in the concrete circumstances, were committed on its behalf. Partnerships and companies in formation are treated as legal persons.

The prosecution of the company does not rule out the prosecution of the natural persons who committed the same facts or took part in them, such as directors or employees. Both can be convicted alongside each other.

Since 1 September 2026 that rule sits in article 18 of the new Belgian Criminal Code. For facts from before that date, article 5 of the old Criminal Code applies, which provides the same in substance.