Article 169 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – imitation of business protection

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of a crime under Article 169 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as well as the prospects for improving the legislation in order to more effectively protect business freedoms. In Russian criminal legislation there is a separate article that prohibits an official from interfering with the activities of individual entrepreneurs and legal entities. However, the analysis of criminal statistics shows that the existence of a separate article for the protection of entrepreneurs’ rights does not help to combat the existing state of things. This is partly due to the fact that the improvement of the regulatory environment for the creation of legal entities made it impractical to a commit acts prohibited by this article. There is also a high latency of illegal actions by officials who pressure businesses. For example, in Russia veiled extortion is quite common in order to force entrepreneurs to provide free financial assistance, from allocating funds for social purposes to providing the authorities with necessary items for various events. The authors note that the most important condition for the freedom of entrepreneurs today is the improvement of civil legislation in the field of social partnership between government and business. Criminal legislation is the last line of protection for business entities and should be as effective as possible. Outdated and cumbersome wording of Article 169 of the Russian Criminal Code does not meet this criterion. The actions of officials contrary to the interests of the service should be qualified as malfeasance by a public official (Art. 285, 286 of the Criminal Code), including any forms of the restriction of rights and freedoms of business.