On 14 April 2011, the Belgian Parliament approved an important adjustment to the existing system of judicial settlement in criminal matters (art. 216bis CCP) in order to facilitate its application in tax fraud and white collar crime cases in general. As this adjustment did not apply to certain offences such as document forgery, a reparation law was introduced on 11 July 2011 to extend the scope of application.
Settlements bring an end to on-going police investigations and avoid criminal conviction via payment of a fine and, where necessary, compensation of the victim. Under the existing regulation, the settlement option was excluded for offences punishable with a prison sentence of more than five years (for example non-fiscal forgery of documents). For all other offences, it could only be applied before the case was filed, i.e. sent to an investigating magistrate or to the court.
Following the legislative amendment of 14 April 2011, the Prosecutor could propose a settlement for all offences where he would only claim a financial penalty (and, depending on the case, confiscation). With the reparation law, this was further extended to all offences for which the Prosecutor would only claim an imprisonment of two years at most. Consequently, settlement can now also be proposed for non fiscal document forgery which is, often at the core of fraud cases.
Also, under the new regulation of 14 April 2011, settlements are no longer subject to time limitations, and can be initiated until the last judicial decision becomes final. Consequently, a settlement remains an option after preliminary investigation, during the court hearings and up to the last ruling. As a result, all offences that require a more thorough investigation (search, seizure …) by the investigating magistrate are now included within the scope of the law.
As before, settlements can only be initiated by the Prosecutor and require the agreement of the victim and, depending on the case, the tax or social security administration. The charges will only be dropped after all conditions are met, i.e. after payment of the fine and, depending on the case, after deposit of the indicated goods and payment of damages, social security or tax contributions (including interest).
The new system aims at avoiding the costs, workload and long proceedings related to complex files in cases where a financial penalty involving damage compensation is considered to be sufficient.
The amendment regarding judicial settlement entered into force on 16 May 2011. The reparation law entered into force on 11 august 2011.
