The Concept of Freedom of Enterprise Through the Prism of Criminal Law Characteristics of Fraud

Abstract

The research of issues connected with the analysis of business risks is relevant because of the problem of qualifying the actions of entrepreneurs under the fraud-related Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Besides, the development of technologies increases the number of frauds in the digital environment, which makes it necessary to determine key features of fraudulent actions connected with the changes in the economic organization of the society connected with the digital transformation of some branches of the world economy in general and Russian economy in particular, of the social sphere, and of the specifics of public administration of some areas of life. The responsiveness of lawmakers manifested in amending a group of Articles in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation regarding the legal characteristics of fraud, shows that there are some problems in the legislative regulation of this sphere. The author believes that they are caused by an attempt to assess the degree of freedom of enterprise and the degree of involvement of each side of legal relations in the risk of investment. The analysis of legislation, the law enforcement practice, statistical data give reason to believe that most of the problems of legislative understanding of fraud in entrepreneurship are not connected with contradictions in the legal regulation, but rather with the drawbacks of the law enforcement practice, the prevalence of repressive methodology in classifying the actions of entrepreneurs and the inner conviction of the law enforcement employees that entrepreneurs intentionally strive to obtain negative results in any, and primarily entrepreneurial, activities. The author argues that further improvement of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation will not yield any tangible results, which testifies to a considerable transformation of the fraud-related Articles in the last 15 years. Changes in the practice of enforcement of the criminal law’s articles regarding fraud are only possible after the principles of such work are worked out by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, who at present pays much attention to this issue, although some clauses of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation require further analysis and improvement.