White-collar crime as a criminal offense: increased responsibility without simplification of the process

Andriy Trigub, lawyer, Ph.D., associate partner of Skliarenko, Sydorenko and Partners, especially for the publication of "Legal Practice"

This week the Verkhovna Rada finally voted in favor of a new institution of criminal offenses, the introduction of which was provided by the Criminal Procedure Code of 2012. What will change in the Ukrainian practice of the White-collar crime?

With the entry into force of the Law “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Concerning the Simplification of Pre-Trial Investigation of Certain Categories of Criminal Offenses”, all minor crimes will be considered criminal offenses. For them, the legislator has established a simplified investigation procedure in the form of an inquiry with a shortened time limit in order to relieve the law enforcement agencies and the courts.

And this, of course, makes sense, because today there is about a thousand criminal proceedings per investigator in the district police department of Kiev, which makes it impossible to quickly and efficiently investigate cases. On the other hand, the legislator laid down certain contradictions that are unlikely to have a positive effect on practice. Thus, the State Bureau of Investigation, which in its original plan should not be involved in minor matters, will also investigate misconduct. Another example: in spite of the reduced requirements for proving non-serious criminal offenses, investigators left the possibility of the use of certain types of covert investigative and search actions.

Under the new law, the criterion for classifying an offense as a criminal offense becomes the severity of the main punishment: a fine of no more than three thousand non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens or other punishment not related to deprivation of liberty.

That is, under the simplification should get part of the investigation of crimes that lawyers have traditionally included in the category of "white-collar". And it will really concern such white-collar crime as violations in the field of intellectual property rights, gross violation of labor legislation, opposition to legitimate economic activities and some others.

But not everything is so simple. Along with simplification, the Law provides for an increase in the amount of fines for a number of articles establishing responsibility for economic and corruption crimes: fraud, tax evasion, abuse of authority by an official of a legal entity of private law, abuse of authority by public service providers, a proposal, promise or provision of improper benefits official. Consequently, these offenses, as before, will be investigated according to the general rules.

Therefore, in fact, changes made to the Criminal Code will have an impact on the scope of the White-collar crime primarily through a marked increase in the size of fines. However, you should not hope for a quick effect: the law should be earned only in a year.