Íñigo Ortiz de Urbina Gimeno

Íñigo Ortiz de Urbina Gimeno, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Complutense University of Madrid and Dr. Honoris Causa from the University of Mannheim, provides his services to Oliva-Ayala Abogados through a contract signed between this firm and the Complutense University under section 83 of the Spanish Universities Act [Ley Orgánica de Universidades].

After graduating with the best academic record of his class and postgraduate studies at Harvard and Munich Universities, Mr Ortiz de Urbina earned his doctorate with a thesis on economic analysis of criminal law, which was unanimously awarded with a distinction cum laude. He is an expert in economic criminal law, criminal liability of legal persons and economic analysis of criminal policy, on which he has published and edited more than 80 publications, including 11 books. He has also given numerous courses and lectures at public and private institutions, including the universities of Harvard, Buffalo, Manchester, Pace, York, Erlangen, Humboldt zu Berlin, Mannheim, Buenos Aires, Chile, Modena and Milan. From 2012 to 2023 he directed the criminal law and criminology collection of Marcial Pons publishing house, and is co-editor and co-author of the prestigious Memento de Derecho penal y de Empresa of Francis Lefebvre publishing house.

Before becoming a lawyer, he worked for two years as a judge pro-tem. He has intervened in important cases at all levels and stages of the criminal jurisdiction, having brought and orally defended appeals in cassation before the Supreme Court and successfully presented several appeals for constitutional protection before the Constitutional Court. He has also worked in compliance matters, having been appointed external compliance monitor in a World Bank procedure.

From 2009 to 2011 he was an advisor in the cabinet of the Minister of Justice. In that capacity, he participated in Spanish and European legislative proceedings and represented Spain in numerous international forums, including before the European Union, the Committee Against Torture and the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption. In 2023, on the occasion of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, he worked as a technical advisor for the Directorate General of International Legal Cooperation of the Spanish Ministry of Justice. He has participated as an expert in international evaluation procedures on corruption prevention for the Council of Europe, the OECD and the UN, and as an expert witness on Spanish law before English and US courts and in international arbitration proceedings.