In order to increase liability for unlawful receipt and use of commercial, tax or banking secrets, the government has submitted to the State Duma a draft law amending parts 3 and 4 of Article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (No. 825103-8), which toughen penalties for disclosure of commercial, tax or banking secrets. Experts point out that increasing liability is not enough to solve the problem; a comprehensive approach is needed, including prevention of such offences.

Competition of criminal law norms may become of great importance, which may be difficult to overcome in practice. For example, the composition of part 3 of article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in practice may be imputed together with part 2 of article 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which punishes unlawful access to legally protected computer information causing major damage or committed with a vested interest, i.e. with the same qualifying elements, which are also contained in part 3 of article 183 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. 

Thus, the complexity may lie not only in the fact that the dispositions of both articles in their essence can be implemented in the objective aspects of more serious offences, but also in the fact that illegally obtained information in circulation, used for criminal purposes, may in many cases imply the same object of encroachment. 

Again, returning to the example, the sanction of part 2 of article 272 of the Criminal Code of the RF, taking into account the proposed changes, may be much milder due to the presence of an extensive list of possible punishments. In this regard, it can be assumed that the amendments to Part 4 of Art. 183 of the Criminal Code of the RF may not significantly affect the current approaches to the imposition of punishments proposed therein.

You can read more about the material on the website of the professional publication ‘Economy and Life’