A request to give the definition to the businessmen’ crimes will be addressed to Vladimir Putin

The definition of an economic crime must be included in the Penal Procedural Code, and the fraud cases must be judged by a jury trial. This is the essence of the package of suggested amendments for business, which will be given to the President.

RBC was able to see the bullet points of the suggestion of humanization of the penal legislation, which the business ombudsman Boris Titov will present to Vladimir Putin in May. The authors of the reform – the “Business Russia” and the office of the business ombudsman - say that the changes are necessary due to the fact that the current provisions of the Penal Procedural Code are unable to effectively protect the business from pressure by the law enforcers.

Andrey Nazarov, co-chairman of the Business Russia and of the center of public procedures “Business against Corruption”, told RBC that this is the sixth package of humanization of the penal legislation. After the fifth package, six additional fraud articles were introduced into the Penal Code (159.1 — 159.6), including business frauds. Besides, a fraud charge now may only be laid upon a victim’s request (private-and-public charge); the crimes involving budget funds are the exception.

A.Nazarov explains: “The office of the ombudsman and the Business Russia have studied the causes of why the amendments of the first five packages did not function effectively enough, and made the sixth package of humanization of the penal legislation in order to eliminate those”.

A clearer crime

The presentation to B.Titov’s report says that the new definition of a “crime in the business sphere” needs to be added to the PPC. The wording should be as follows: a “deed incurring criminal liability, performed by owners or managers of commercial organizations or by individual entrepreneurs, related to deliberate non-performance of contractual obligations within the framework of economic activity”.

Several articles of the Penal Code and the Penal Procedural Code contain the definitions of business activity — Article 159.4 of the Penal Code (fraud in the sphere of business activity), Article 20 of the Penal Procedural Code (types of penal prosecution) and Article 108 of the Penal Procedural Code (custodial placement). This leads to that criminal cases involving businessmen are initiated in consideration of non-uniform interpretation of this term. According to the materials, the matter of in what cases the crimes under articles 159 — 159.6 (fraud), 160 (misappropriation or embezzlement) and 165 of the Penal Code (causing property damages by fraud or by abuse of trust) should or should not be deemed committed in the sphere of business activity, is resolved in a subjective manner.

Alexander Bolomatov, Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", confirms the existence of such problem: there is no uniform application of the law, much is determined at the discretion of the policemen and the court. The lawyer points out: “Clear criteria of classification as a business crime are needed, so that everybody could understand the rules”.

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