ON CRIMINAL LEGAL ADEQUACY OF CRIMINALIZATION OF ABUSE IN WHOLESALE ENERGY MARKETS

Abstract

The article is devoted to a critical analysis of the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to supplement the Criminal Code of Ukraine with two new articles 222-2 and 232-3, as a result of which scientifically based conclusions were made about the social conditionality of these changes, in particular, their compliance with such a principle of criminalization as the principle of criminal - political adequacy of criminalization. In particular, based on the results of writing the article, the erroneousness of the method of improving the criminal legislation chosen by the parliamentarians and embodied by the Law of June 19, 2020 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Simplification of Attracting Investments and Introduc­tion of New Financial Instruments” was proved. It is pointed out that in Ukraine at the legislative level (by the Law of November 15, 2011 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Humanization of Responsibil­ity for Offenses in the Sphere of Economic Activity”) it was clearly fixed (by excluding Articles 228 and 230 of the Criminal of the Code of Ukraine) a provision on the inexpediency of crimi­nal law regulation of relations in the field of compliance with competition law. At the same time, it is noted that the aforementioned Law of June 19, 2020 introduces two new norms into the system of Section VII of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Criminal offenses in the field of economic activity” (Articles 222-2 and 232-3), which impor­tantly, without a single justification for this step, criminal liability is established for individual manifestations of anti-competitive actions in only one area - in the wholesale energy markets. Taking into account the above arguments, a general conclusion is made that when supple­menting the Criminal Code of Ukraine with articles 222-2 and 232-3, the principle of criminal-political adequacy of criminalization was grossly violated.