Juan Félix Marteau

In the professional sphere, he has founded and leads Marteau. Attorneys-at-Law, a legal firm aimed to influence the decision-making in the field of transnational economic and financial crime, providing its clients with highly specialized services of strategic advice, smart litigation and global consulting.

He is a member of the section of recommended lawyers by the embassies of the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany in Buenos Aires.

In particular, he acts as attorney in numerous cases of criminal law, economic criminal law and administrative criminal law where companies and their management have been attacked with abusive actions by governmental agencies. In these efforts, he has acted on behalf of his clients representing them before administrative authorities, and throughout all instances involving Argentine federal courts, including the Supreme Court of Justice.

He has proven experience in dealing with complex matters in relation to clients such as media groups, banks, digital wallets, insurance companies, tobacco companies, casinos, universities, educational services companies, credit unions, storage and documentation management companies, as well as human persons. Currently, he also represents the relatives of one of the Argentinean victims of the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack, occurred in Manhattan, NYC.

To practice as an attorney-at-law before federal courts in Argentina, he is enrolled in the Capital Federal Bar Association and San Martín Federal Court of Appeals.

In addition, he advises on corporate policies of risk management and regulatory compliance in matters of money laundering and terrorist financing to leading national and foreign companies in the field of communication, education and finance. In this activity, he has designed institutional proceeds for organizations to be effective in preventing illicit activities.

He is as an Independent External Reviewer of the most important companies subject to the obligations of the Law 25.256 on Money Laundering.

He is also consultant of international organizations in the field of financial crime systemic risk assessment, having participated in numerous high-level missions. As a consultant for UNODC, he has performed as an expert of the Financial Disruption Program in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Colombia, and as an observer in the Mutual Evaluation of Equatorial Guinea (GABAC). As a consultant to the IMF, he has been involved in the design of National Strategies for Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama. As IDB advisor, he was responsible for conducting the National Risk Assessment for Paraguay.

In the sphere of public management, he served as National Coordinator for combating money laundering and terrorist financing (Macri Administration). He also acted as National Coordinator and Representative of the Argentine Republic before the Financial Action Task Force (FATF-FATF), the International Financial Action Task Force for South America (GAFISUD) and the Group of Experts for the Control of Money Laundering of CICAD- OAS (Kichner Administration).

As part of those technical-political assignments, he implemented the first Terrorist Financing & Proliferation National Risk Assessment, represented the National Government in the second FATF-GAFI Mutual Assessment in four continents (America, Europe, Africa and Asia), coordinated the first National Agenda on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of the Financing of Terrorism -approved by the decree 1225/2007- and was responsible for drafting several bills on combating terrorism and financial crime, including the one that introduce for first time, the crime of Terrorist Associations and Terrorist Financing  in the National Criminal Code (Law 26.268).

Also, he gave advice to the National House of Representatives Criminal Law Committee, and many representatives and senators in matters of fighting financial crime.

In the NGO sphere, he founded and chairs FININT / the Foundation for Research on Financial Intelligence, which was designed to influence on the public agenda concerning terrorism and financial crime. As a member of the US Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVPL), he co-founded REAL / the Argentine-American Network for Leadership. Currently, he serves as member of the Transnational Organized Crime Committee at the Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI).  He is also a member of the American Bar Association.

In the university sphere, he pursued his academic career after successfully undergoing competitive qualification processes. Currently, at the University of Buenos Aires, he is Professor of Criminology (School of Psychology), Director of the postgraduate course on Global Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (School of Law) and Director of the Center for Hemisphere Security, Terrorism and Financial Crime (School of Law).

He held postdoctoral positions at Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Germany), Maison des Sciences des Sciences de l’Homme and Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le Droit et les Institutions Pénales (France), and the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa (Canada). He was awarded a master’s degree and PhD in Sociology by San Pablo University (Brazil). He studied criminology at the Hamburg Universität (Germany). He graduated as lawyer from Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Santa Fe, Argentina).

He is a regular speaker at conferences and expert meetings in the country and abroad. He wrote books such as Las Palabras del Orden and La condición estratégica de las Normas, and articles in specialized journals and major local newspapers about issues related to law, politics and financial crime.

He speaks Spanish (mother tongue), French, English and Portuguese. He also uses German and Italian for his technical work.