Biography: Business Crime Defence

Roberto Pisano is the founder and managing partner of Studio Legale Pisano, an Italian boutique firm which specialises in areas of white-collar crime including corporate criminal responsibility, corruption, market abuse and false accounting, tax crimes, fraud and recovery of assets, bankruptcy crimes, environmental and health and safety crimes and money laundering. The firm provides assistance as well in the course of regulatory investigations and specialises on transnational investigations and related aspects of mutual legal assistance and extradition. The firm benefits from the expertise of specialists in criminal and international law and interacts daily with counsel of various jurisdictions to successfully represent defendants during white-collar criminal and regulatory proceedings.

Mr Pisano has a history of representing prominent individuals and entities in high-profile Italian criminal proceedings, including: a case alleging international tax fraud involving the Italian prime minister, in which Mr Pisano represents a well-known US movie producer; a case involving a claim for restitution of antiquities by the Italian Ministry of Culture, in which Mr Pisano represented a prominent US museum; a case alleging a fraudulent bankruptcy of managers and contractual parties of Parmalat SpA, including foreign banks, in which Mr Pisano represents a prominent external counsel of a US bank; and a case alleging multiple homicide of several workers by the managers of a multinational company manufacturing hazardous products, in which Mr Pisano was a member of the defence team. Mr Pisano has also successfully represented prominent individuals and entities in foreign jurisdictions (eg, the USA, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Monaco and Ireland) in appeals against the seizure and confiscation of their assets. He regularly provides affidavits and serves as an expert witness within foreign proceedings for judicial reviews of search and seizure orders.

Mr Pisano obtained a law degree, cum laude, from the State University, Milan, in 1992, and a PhD from the University of Genoa in 1999. Between 1993 and 1997 he was a research associate at Bocconi University of Milan where, since then, he has worked as a contract professor on business and tax crimes. He is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad on the subject of white-collar crime and mutual legal assistance and extradition.

Mr Pisano was co-chair of the business crime committee of the IBA in 2007 and 2008, vice chair of the ECBA in 2008 and 2009, and is a member of the ABA and NACDL. He is the author of several publications on the subject of business crime and mutual legal assistance, including: Tax Crimes (Cedam, 2002, co-author); chapters one and two of Di Amato's Criminal Responsibility from Asbestos (Giuffré, 2003); The Relations Between Domestic Law, Treaty Law and EC Law (Egea, 1995); 'EU arrest warrant in action' (in European Lawyer, 2005, co-author); and The Illegal Performance of Financial Intermediation (Cedam, 2007).