Deputies to toughen penalties for petty bribes and commercial bribery

Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Vasily Piskarev (United Russia) developed a bill to expand the list of criminal offenses in the articles on petty commercial bribery (204.2 of the Criminal Code) and petty bribery (291.2 of the Criminal Code). The document has not been submitted to the State Duma, but has already received a positive response from the government (it is at the disposal of Vedomosti).

The review states that a number of actions of a corrupt nature are proposed to be singled out as independent offenses. Among them are the illegal transfer and receipt of the subject of petty commercial bribery by a person performing managerial functions in a commercial or other organization; giving and receiving a petty bribe by an official, a foreign official or an official of a public international organization. In addition, it is proposed to establish additional qualifying signs for such crimes: a group of persons by prior agreement or an organized group, as well as knowingly illegal actions, extortion.

It is proposed to increase liability for taking a bribe or commercial bribery in an amount not exceeding 10,000 rubles. As Piskarev explained to Vedomosti, we are talking about tougher punishment.

“Corruption put on stream, regardless of the seemingly small amount of a bribe or regular small extortions from citizens, poses no less social danger than corruption on a large scale. Practice shows that such crimes take on the character of a criminal business, when individuals, in a number of cases united in an organized group, collect amounts comparable to large bribes through organized extortion,” Piskarev said.

According to him, this phenomenon can be encountered in different areas. “I think it would be fair, as proposed in the draft law, to include these offenses in the list of crimes for which confiscation is possible,” Piskarev added.

The government’s response states that the sanctions of the projected parts 1 and 2 of Art. 204.2 of the Criminal Code, which establish the same punishments in the form of correctional labor for up to one year for acts of different degrees of public danger, “require clarification.” The government also considers it necessary to correct the clause on punishment in the form of compulsory work in the article on bribery: the draft sanction specifies up to 250 hours, while it must be taken into account that compulsory work is served no more than four hours a day (part 2 of article 49 of the Criminal Code).

The government demands to justify the establishment of the same punishments in the form of correctional labor and imprisonment in the sanctions of the drafted parts 2 and 4 of Art. 291.2 of the Criminal Code, providing for liability for receiving and giving a bribe if there are qualifying signs.

The bill provides, in fact, cosmetic adjustments to the existing norms, says Dmitry Gorbunov, partner at the law firm Rustam Kurmaev and Partners. “This initiative actually develops the existing norms to circumstances that are not currently covered by it in terms of qualified features,” Gorbunov said. According to the lawyer, the main part concerns the adjustment of sanctions for the crime committed in relation to the procedure for the execution of sentences for convicts. As a consequence, it can be indicated that the horizons for the application of these provisions of the Criminal Code will expand due to the emergence of new compositions, which in practice have more severe penalties in their content, Gorbunov noted.

Initially, these offenses (petty commercial bribery and petty bribery) were introduced in 2016 in pursuance of the relevant order of the president aimed at tightening approaches to corruption crimes, Vladimir Kuznetsov, vice president of the Association of Lawyers for Registration, Liquidation, Bankruptcy and Legal Representation, recalled. After the introduction of these elements of crime, such acts as commercial bribery in the amount of up to 10,000 rubles became criminally punishable. and giving a bribe in the same amount.

“Accordingly, the new bill is designed to further expand the list of criminal offenses and add qualifying signs (aggravating circumstances) to the already existing offenses,” Kuznetsov explained.

Vladislav Radov, a public law lawyer at Key Consulting Group, believes that the regulation of these articles “is hardly appropriate enough to counter bribery and commercial bribery, including petty types of relevant crimes.”