Nearly 300 people from the business and legal communities participated in the Compliance Officer and Corporate Criminal Liability conference, held in the main lecture hall of the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) on Wednesday, 15 October 2014, and organized by the UIC Faculty of Law and the law firm Molins & Silva-Defensa Penal.

The conference addressed the imminent reform of the Spanish Criminal Code, which will stipulate that companies design and implement corporate systems and policies to prevent illegal behaviour within the scope of the company, specifically, any such behaviour that administrators, representatives and employees may have been involved in when performing their job.

Dr. Javier Junceda, the Dean of the UIC Faculty of Law, said, “The success of the conference highlights the need to delve deeper into new realities in the legal context and ratifies the faculty's aim of focusing on continuous education and making students aware of the latest trends and requirements in terms of the law through the work of renowned professionals with firsthand experience”.

Axel-Dirk Blumenberg, the attorney responsible for corporate defence at Molins & Silva, added, “The conference has confirmed the need for the new figure of the compliance officer as the party responsible for ensuring compliance with the regulatory and legal framework with criminal implications in each company”.

Speakers such as Dr. José Ramón Agustina, the Director of the UIC Area of Criminal Law and a consultant with Molins & Silva-Defensa Penal, Dr. Víctor Gómez, the Chair of Criminal Law at the Universitat de Barcelona and a consultant with Molins & Silva-Defensa Penal, Ana Isabel Soriano, a compliance officer at El Corte Inglés department store, and Gertrudis Alarcón, Managing Partner at G5 Integritas, discussed topics such as the legal framework of the criminal liability of bodies corporate and the function of the compliance officer.