CRIMINAL RISKS WHEN WORKING WITH THE GOVERNMENT AND WAYS TO PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS AGAINST THEM: ALEXEY KASATKIN SPOKE AT KOMMERSANT CONFERENCE

Criminal Defense Firm Senior Partner Alexey Kasatkin acted as an expert at the conference ‘Criminal and Subsidiary Liability of the Management and Owners’. The conference gathered over 70 business and government representatives. 

Tatiana Mineeva, Moscow City Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights, opened the conference. She spoke about court practice on criminal cases in business, statistics on financial crimes in Moscow, entrepreneurs’ appeals to the Commissioner, and initiatives undertaken in different economic sectors to protect business representatives.

The conference addressed the following subjects:

- Novelties in criminal liability of business representatives

- Court practice on criminal litigation in business 

- Intricacies of prosecuting owners, beneficiaries, and controllers

- Boundaries of owners’ and bank managers’ responsibilities within business rescue

- Criminal risks when working with the government and ways to protect your business against them.

Within his speech ‘Criminal Risks When Working With The Government And Ways To Protect Your Business Against Them’ Alexey Kasatkin primarily focused the participants’ attention on frequent criminal risks in subjects mentioned above, methods and boundaries to apply Article 210 of Russia's Criminal Code, and subsidiary liability of credit organizations’ controllers.

Speaking of central and local government procurement, both bidders, citizens, and Federal Tax Service of Russia, Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, defense and law enforcement agencies of Russia could initiate an inspection.

Bidders are usually convicted of the following articles of Russia’s Criminal Code:

- Article 159 (Fraud)

- Article 160 (Misappropriation or Embezzlement)

- Article 174.1 (The Legalization (Laundering) of Amounts of Money)

- Article 200.5 (Bribery)

- Article 201 (Abuse of Authority)

- Article 204 (Bribery in a Profit-making Organization)

- Article 210 (The Event of Organizing and/or Participating in a Criminal Community)

- Article 291 (Bribe-giving) and other.

Alexey specified criminal risks for the company that cooperates with the government and listed effective measures to minimize and prevent them:

1. Digital hygiene – following cybersecurity instructions;

2. Allocating responsibilities – correct job descriptions and regulations;

3. Organizing bidding procedures;

4. Monitoring counterparties;

5. Keeping track of resigned employees, personnel record maintenance;

6. Systemizing incoming information from tax services and/or law enforcement agencies in one pair of hands.

The discussion thoroughly reviewed CDF’s case on the steps to avoid legal responsibility while performing government contract, and to prove the company’s integrity.