Biography: Business Crime Defence

Jan Sjöcrona is a senior partner in the The Hague office of Sjöcrona Van Stigt. He has been practising as a criminal defence advocate in The Hague since 1985, specialising in cases of fraud, white-collar crime, mutual legal assistance, extradition and Supreme Court litigation. He has acted for the defence in many high-profile cases.

Between 1980 and 1985, Jan worked for Leiden University (after graduating there) as a faculty staff member teaching criminal law and criminal procedure. In 1990, he obtained his doctorate with a prize-winning thesis on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In the 1990s he was also a part-time professor to the chair of international criminal law at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

For about a decade now The Legal 500 has described Mr Sjöcrona as a 'leading expert' of the 'first-rate white-collar crime boutique Sjöcrona van Stigt', 'recommended' and 'regarded as one of the very best by both clients and peers'. He has many publications to his name on a variety of aspects of criminal procedure and defence ethics, including a book on international criminal law (with co-authors). He is a nationally and internationally recognised speaker.

Mr Sjöcrona has been a long-standing member of the criminal law advisory commission of the Netherlands Bar Association and is co-founder and (former council) member of the Dutch Association of Criminal Defence Counsel. He was co-chair of the IBA business crime committee in 2009 and 2010. He speaks English, Swedish, French and German.