Vlad Ulici
Associate
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As a criminal defence lawyer in Cluj-Napoca, Vlad assists individuals and companies in cases of economic crime, cybercrime and other offences, from the investigation stage through to appeal. He is a member of the Cluj Bar and the author of several scholarly articles.
He graduated from the Faculty of Law of Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, with a thesis on abuse of office committed by a private-sector official. He continued at the same faculty with the Master’s programme in Criminal Sciences and Criminalistics, which he completed ranking first in his cohort. His dissertation, on the offence of using false documents before the customs authority, later became a study published in Caiete de drept penal.
Recognition
- Ranked first in his cohort, Master’s programme in Criminal Sciences and Criminalistics, Faculty of Law, Babeș-Bolyai University
- Author of the editorial of the Cluj Bar Journal in issues 1/2025 and 1/2026
- Paper selected for the Young Legal Researchers Conference organised by the „Acad. Andrei Rădulescu” Institute of Legal Research of the Romanian Academy (2025), subsequently published by the Romanian Academy Publishing House
- Six sole-authored works in Caiete de drept penal, Penalmente Relevant and the Cluj Bar Journal, four studies and two editorials
Practice areas
White-collar and economic crime
I assist individuals and companies in cases of embezzlement (art. 295 of the Criminal Code), abuse of office (art. 297), deception, tax evasion and money laundering. Where the act is committed within a private company, rather than by a public official, the penalty limits are reduced by one third, which also changes the limitation periods and, in some cases, the chance that the charge never reaches court at all. I step in during the investigation stage. That is where the scope of the case and the documents it rests on are settled.
Cybercrime
Illegal access to an information system (art. 360 of the Criminal Code), computer forgery, computer fraud, fraudulent financial operations. I assist people questioned after their phone or laptop has been seized, and victims of online fraud. I have published a study on the limits of criminalising computer tools, that is, on the line between a program used for an attack and one with legitimate uses.
Criminal procedure and case-closing outcomes
Questioning, preventive measures, complaints against the prosecutor’s decisions, waiver of prosecution and waiver of sentence. My first published study concerned the witness’s right to silence, precisely because the procedural position of a person called as a witness can change in the course of a single hearing, and whatever they said up to that point stays on the file.
Frequently asked questions
I am under investigation for tax evasion or abuse of office as a company director. Where do I start?
Ask for the file to be copied through your lawyer and give no statement until you know what is being investigated and on what evidence. In economic cases the accusation is built from accounting records, contracts and the company’s internal correspondence, sometimes gathered years earlier, and a position taken in the first days is hard to correct later, even if better explanations emerge in the meantime. Where the act is committed within a private company, abuse of office is charged through art. 308 of the Criminal Code, with reduced limits. I review the documents, check whether the damage is real, and settle the defence before the first hearing.
What do I risk if I access someone else’s phone or social-media account?
Accessing an information system without authorisation is an offence under art. 360 of the Criminal Code, punishable by 3 months to 3 years’ imprisonment or a fine in its basic form. Where the access was made in order to obtain data, the penalty rises to 5 years, and where the system had restricted access, to 7 years. Consent is not presumed from a family relationship or from the fact that you knew the password. I assist you whether you are the person investigated or the person whose account was accessed.
I lost money through a deepfake investment advert. What do I do?
Contact a lawyer and have him file the criminal complaint quickly and ask for the accounts the money went to be frozen, before the funds are moved on. If you made the transfer yourself, misled by the advert and by a conversation with a supposed adviser, the offence is deception (art. 244 of the Criminal Code). If the payment was made by someone else, using your card or account details, other offences are in play, with a different regime. Keep the statements, the screenshots and the correspondence. The chances of recovery depend on how fast you act.
Someone used my face in intimate material generated with artificial intelligence. What can I do?
Contact a lawyer and have him file a criminal complaint and preserve the evidence immediately: links, screenshots, the accounts from which it was distributed. Those accounts disappear fast. Distributing intimate images without right is punishable by 6 months to 3 years’ imprisonment or a fine (art. 226 of the Criminal Code). Where the material is artificially generated the case becomes harder, because the law was written for real images. I have written about that gap and I know what can be obtained with the existing texts, including blackmail and harassment.
What is waiver of prosecution and when can it be obtained?
It is the decision by which the prosecutor closes the file without sending the case to trial, having found that there is no public interest in prosecution. Art. 318 of the Criminal Procedure Code allows it for offences punishable by a fine or by no more than 7 years’ imprisonment, and the order must be confirmed by the preliminary chamber judge. The prosecutor may impose obligations, for instance performing unpaid community work or attending a counselling programme, and failure to comply in bad faith leads to the decision being revoked and the investigation reopened.
Published articles
- Limitele și implicațiile practice ale dreptului martorului la tăcere și neautoincriminare (The limits and practical implications of the witness’s right to silence and against self-incrimination), Penalmente Relevant, no. 2/2023 – see here.
- Echivalentul art. 7 din Directiva 2013/40/UE din dreptul penal român (The Romanian equivalent of art. 7 of Directive 2013/40/EU), Caiete de drept penal, no. 1/2024 (DOI 10.24193/cdp.2024.1.5) – see here.
- Infracțiunea de evadare: suprareglementare sau necesitate? (Escape from custody: over-regulation or necessity?), Jurnalul Baroului Cluj, no. 2/2024 – see here.
- Infracțiunea de folosire de acte nereale la autoritatea vamală (The offence of using false documents before the customs authority), Caiete de drept penal, no. 1/2025 (DOI 10.24193/cdp.2025.1.4) – see here.
- Editorial. Dreptul penal sub asediul inflației legislative (Editorial. Criminal law under the pressure of legislative inflation), Jurnalul Baroului Cluj, no. 1/2025– see here.
- Editorial. Aplicarea eronată a principiului ultima ratio. Judecătorul-legiuitor (Editorial. The mistaken application of the ultima ratio principle. The judge as legislator), Jurnalul Baroului Cluj, no. 1/2026 – see here.
- Fenomenul „pornografiei din răzbunare” în era deepfake: necesitatea unei incriminări exprese (Revenge pornography in the deepfake era: the case for an express offence), in the volume Dinamica legislativă și realitatea juridică, Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 2026 – see here.
Conference speaker
- 21 November 2025 – „Revenge pornography in the deepfake era: the case for an express offence”, Young Legal Researchers Conference „Legislative Dynamics and Legal Reality”, „Acad. Andrei Rădulescu” Institute of Legal Research of the Romanian Academy, Casa Academiei, Bucharest.
Professional affiliations
Academic profile
Practice Areas:
Cybercrime
White-collar crime
Criminal law
Articles