CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DEMARCATION OF CRIMINAL OFFENSES PROVIDED FOR IN ART. 190 AND 206-2 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF UKRAINE

Abstract

Criminal offenses covered by the concept of raiding are Art. 205-1 (“Forgery of documents submitted for state registration of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs”), Art. 206 (“Obstruction of legitimate economic activity”) and Article 206-2 (“Illegal seizure of property of an enterprise, institution or organisation”) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. At the same time, a number of related criminal law prohibitions that establish responsibility for raiding are recognized as scientific doctrine, among which there is also Art. 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Based on the analysis of judicial and law enforcement practice, it should be noted that there are problems in distinguishing between criminal acts under Articles 190 (“Fraud”) and 206-2 (“Illegal seizure of property of enterprises, institutions, organizations”) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in pre-trial investigation. This necessitates the continuation of the scientific search for the distinguishing features of these criminal offenses. Doctrinal approaches to the separation of illegal seizure of property of an enterprise, institution, organization into an independent criminal offense are considered. The case law on voluntary transfer of property as a mandatory sign of fraud has been studied. As a result of research, it is defined that the distinguishing feature of structures of the criminal offenses provided by Art. 190 and 206-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine is the obligation of voluntary transfer of property in the first criminal offense, and the absence of such obligation – in the second. In view of this, the expediency of criminalizing the illegal seizure of property of an enterprise, institution, organization in the form of a separate article (Article 206-2) was supported.