On the Definition of the Objective of Criminal Law on the Protection of Public Relations in the Sphere of Economic Activity

This article focuses on the changes introduced by the legislator to Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in 2018. As a result, this Chapter has been supplemented with novellas: Article 172.3, which establishes criminal liability for "failure to include information on the funds placed by individuals and individual entrepreneurs in financial records and financial statements of a credit organization"; Article 200.4, which establishes criminal liability for "abuses in the procurement of goods, works, and services for state or municipal needs"; Article 200.5, which establishes criminal liability for "bribing an employee of a contract service, contract manager, a member of the procurement commission"; Article 2006.6, which establishes criminal liability for "a deliberately false expert opinion in the field of procurement of goods, works, services for the provision of state and municipal needs". Thus, the legislator for the first time introduces special norms that increase the effectiveness of the fight against individual acts, in particular, with the illegal withdrawal of bank assets abroad (Article 172.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as various abuses in the sphere of state and municipal needs (Article 200.4-200.6 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The objectives of the study are to consider whether these changes are sufficient to improve Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The comparative analysis has shown that these changes are not sufficient to improve the Chapter in question, because the legislator has not criminalized some actions that cause significant harm to economic entities: industrial espionage, discrediting the business reputation of the organization and misleading consumers. In this regard, Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contains legislative gaps. Moreover, the norms composing the specified Chapter do not have a common cause. The author specifies several tasks that are completely unrelated to each other - protection of a bona fide entrepreneur from unlawful actions by officials, protection of individuals from unlawful actions of other individuals, protection of the interests of the sports and other leisure organizations, protection of legitimate interests of private individuals from the unfair entrepreneur, protection of state interests from unscrupulous citizens, protection of business relations. The drawbacks of Chapter 22 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are explained by a rather broad formulation of the concept "economic activity", due to which the citizens fail to comply with the obligation to pay taxes and other obligatory payments imposed on them by the state. Thus, the author concludes, that the objective of criminal law in the protection of public relations in the sphere of economic activity is the protection of business relations, which are a specific type of this activity. This definition will allow precise determination of crimes encroaching on business relations.

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