Author

Morozov V.I., Tsygankov S.L.

Title of article

The genesis and characteristics of classifying fictitious bankruptcy

Section

Criminal Law

Issue, year

4 (34) 2015

Abstract

The legislation regulating bankruptcy procedure and criminal liability under Art. 197 of the RF Criminal Code are analyzed. Rare examples of judicial practice in cases when entrepreneurs tried to falsely declare themselves bankrupt are given. A high dynamism of the legislation regulating the institution of bankruptcy in Russia is noted. Declaring bankruptcy of a physical person not being an individual entrepreneur expanded the range of subjects of criminal liability for illegal activities in bankruptcy. The impact of the recent changes and amendments to the legislation on terms of bringing to criminal liability for bankruptcy crimes is estimated. Basing on the results of the research, the authors propose the ways of classifying the actions of persons guilty of committing fictitious bankruptcy. Firstly, due to the fact that declaring bankruptcy itself may not entail causing any damage to creditors due to the bankruptcy procedure peculiarities, the action should be classified as attempted fictitious bankruptcy with reference to part 3 of Art. 30 of the RF Criminal Code. Secondly, if the offender is engaged in falsification of evidence of his alleged bankruptcy, his actions require additional qualification under part 1 of Art. 303 of the RF Criminal Code. Finally, the authors conclude that: the rule contained in Art. 197 of the RF Criminal Code doesn’t meet the established procedure of recognizing business entity a bankrupt; the procedure provided by current legislation on bankruptcy virtually eliminates a possibility to commit such an act; the best solution is to exclude the mentioned article from the RF Criminal Code.

Keywords

bankruptcy crimes, practice of criminal legislation application, improving criminal legislation.

References

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