Joint Defense Team 2025 Year in Review: Cross-Border Criminal Defence & Digital Evidence
- Joint Defense Team
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
In an increasingly interconnected world, criminal proceedings are rarely confined to a single jurisdiction. Digital footprints from encrypted communications, cloud records, metadata and cryptocurrency transactions are frequently gathered across multiple borders, processed in different nations, and used as evidence in courts far from their source. Extradition can add yet another jurisdiction to the mix.
The Joint Defense Team (JDT) is a cooperation of European criminal defence lawyers specialising in these complex, multi-country investigations and prosecutions. We coordinate defence strategies across borders, challenge the legality and reliability of digital evidence, and litigate at both national and European court levels.
In addition, we participate in conferences and symposia as speakers and active participants, publish academic articles and thus contribute to the discussion on jurisprudence and legal policy.
Below is a summary of our key work and milestones in 2025, presented in chronological order:
Quarter 1: SkyECC, Legal Standards, and Admissibility
21 Jan – SkyECC News in Belgium: We explained key background on the SkyECC Joint Investigation Team (France–Netherlands–Belgium) and reported on Belgian developments around access to case materials,
28 Jan – Montenegro Judicial Oversight: An appellate court quashed a judgment based on SkyECC material, citing a lack of reasoning regarding how the data was obtained and its compliance with legal standards.
12 Feb – Fair Trial Victory in Ghent: The Ghent Court of Appeal declared a SkyECC prosecution inadmissible, ruling that undercover tactics had seriously undermined fair-trial rights; relevant for similar debates elsewhere.
17 Feb – Austrian Supreme Court Ruling: The court held that evidence collected abroad is inadmissible if the collection method would have been unlawful under Austrian law, reinforcing cross-border safeguards.
23 Feb – LEAP 2025 (Milan): JDT joined legal experts to discuss fair‑trial rights, surveillance, and cross‑border evidence challenges in modern criminal proceedings,
27 Feb – LEAP 2025 speech (full text): Justus Reisinger set out why courts must test legality, reliability, and user attribution, instead of relying on blind “mutual trust” in cross‑border cases.
5 Mar – ANOM Surveillance Scrutiny: We covered new reporting and defence work questioning how ANOM surveillance was authorised and how secrecy can undermine effective defence rights.
7 Mar – Berlin EncroChat reasons published: The Berlin court explained in detail why EncroChat evidence should be excluded, including EU‑law compliance and reliability/chain‑of‑custody concerns.
26 Mar – The Complicity Debate: We warned against expanding “accomplice” liability to founders of encrypted services based simply on what users may do; an approach that risks undermining core criminal‑law principles.
Quarter 2: Transparency and State Accountability
7 Apr – Montenegro Interview on Data Integrity: Bojana Franovic Kovacevic explained why integrity cannot be verified when source data is withheld, and how this conflicts with European fair-trial safeguards.
13 Apr – Conflicting State Narratives: New case material suggested discrepancies between different states regarding who actually decrypted SkyECC data, highlighting the need for cross-border defence action.
21 May – SkyECC Breakthrough (NL/FR): A French document suggested the Netherlands requested France to intercept SkyECC servers, raising vital questions about Dutch authorisation and responsibility; exactly why defence must act across borders.
22 May – CPDP.ai (Brussels): Using SkyECC as a case study, Justus Reisinger argued that untargeted bulk interception lacks sufficient judicial review and must be challenged in the courtroom.
6 Jun – Octopus Conference (Council of Europe): We highlighted why new cross-border e-evidence tools necessitate stricter defence scrutiny of data integrity and proportionality.
11 Jun – Remedy Gaps in France: The Cour de cassation’s refusal of a constitutional referral illustrated the barriers foreign defendants face when challenging French investigative acts.
Quarter 3: Extradition, CJEU and ANOM Leaks
14 Jul – Cryptocurrency & Criminal Law: We detailed the risks in crypto cases, including technical complexity, "black box" analytics, and trade-secrecy claims that block meaningful challenges.
20 Jul – UAE Extradition Trends: Christian Lödden noted a shift toward more UAE–Europe extraditions, making early and coordinated defence between both jurisdictions essential.
16 Aug – ECtHR Demirhan v. Türkiye: The European Court of Human Rights stressed that convictions built on digital material the defence cannot test violate fair-trial rights.
23 Aug – Spain’s Nimbus Case: Maria Barbancho reported on Spain's strict approach to crypto fraud and the necessity of international coordination and digital forensics expertise.
9 Sep – EU Agencies in Court (SkyECC): The CJEU General Court held hearings on alleged fundamental rights violations by Europol and Eurojust in relation to SkyECC processes.
16 Sep – SkyECC reaches the CJEU: The French Cour de cassation asked the EU court to assess effective remedy requirements for SkyECC evidence used across borders.
28 Sep – ANOM Leaks: Leaked documents suggested judges were misled, raising fresh doubts about admitting ANOM evidence based on "trust" alone.
Quarter 4: AI, Bulk Data, and Territorial Sovereignty
30 Oct – Legal Update (EncroChat/SkyECC): We mapped key pending cases in Strasbourg and Luxembourg alongside national developments to show the rapid evolution of this legal field.
14 Nov – Europol, Bulk Data & AI: We highlighted concerns regarding large-scale data retention and machine learning, emphasizing the need for defence access to algorithmic information.
20 Nov – Article 31 Notification Confirmed: France’s top court reaffirmed that EU states must be notified when phone data capture reaches into other member states.
5 Dec – Swiss Victory (SkyECC): The Zurich High Court excluded SkyECC evidence due to territoriality breaches and a lack of individual suspicion, prioritising legal integrity over "balancing" tests.
Joint Defense Team: Your Partner in Cross-Border Defence
If you are facing an investigation involving SkyECC, EncroChat, or ANOM data, large digital datasets, cryptocurrency tracing, or extradition risk, the JDT can help. We build coordinated defence strategies across countries, focused on transparency, legality, and the protection of your fair-trial rights.