Dentons lawyers successfully defend against occupational fraud case

Recently, an occupational fraud case involving a middle management of a commercial bank in Nantong, advised by a Dentons Nantong team, has finally concluded. With our lawyers' professional defense and tireless efforts, this long time-span, complicated and huge-amount-of-money-involved case was closed as the prosecutorial office adopted all the defender' submission and decided not to prosecute. The Dentons team was led by senior partner Ji Gang, supported by senior partner Huang Ji and paralegal Fan Rong.

This case was different from the general occupational fraud case, as it was not initiated by the "victim" bank reporting, but instead it was reported by several small shareholders of the bank. After being retained by the client, our lawyers met the client for several times, conscientiously reviewed the process of the alleged crime, took minutes for the case files, and conducted investigations and evidence collection. On the basis of the aforementioned efforts, our lawyers held that the focus of the defense should be the fact findings and admissibility of evidence. After a careful analysis of the relationships and business contacts between the bank's shareholders and its management, the financial expenses, and the bank's accounting records (more than 700 pages), the team discovered some small but significant clues. After investigating the clues, analyzing the bank's financial vouchers and data, comparing the transactional information and accounting the amounts involved, the team concluded that the fees handled by the criminal suspect were reasonable expenses incurred by handling various business operations for the bank and there were no misrepresentation or misappropriation. At the same time, the team questioned the authenticity and legality of the testimony of the witnesses submitted by the investigating authority, and held that this part of evidence was uncorroborated, in contradiction with the documentary evidence, and testified by major stakeholders. In the end, the prosecutorial office adopted our lawyers' submission and returned the case to the public security organ for supplementary investigation. After the supplementary investigation has been conducted twice, the prosecutorial office believed that the evidence was insufficient and the facts of the crime was unclear, therefore they decided not to prosecute this case.

This is one of the many cases Dentons Nantong Criminal Defense Center has successfully represented. According to the incomplete statistics, in the past six months, the center successfully represented on a number of cases, including Deng's suspected production and sales of counterfeit drugs (not prosecuted), Xia's alleged occupational fraud (large amount of money) (not indicted), and Wang's alleged misappropriation of public funds (substantial amount) (found not guilty). The successes the center gained fully demonstrated the remarkable achievements of the center's specialization, teamwork, standardization and meticulous defensive strategy. It has effectively protected the legitimate rights and interests of the clients while safeguarding the judicial justice.