La aportación del marco penal español para erradicar la corrupción transnacional: una doble vía inacabada = The contribution of the Spanish criminal law to eradicate transnational bribery: half way through a dual system

Resumen: El objetivo del presente estudio es proceder a un análisis crítico de la normativa española en materia de corrupción internacional. Además de las cuestiones generales, se abordan aspectos controvertidos de la materia, como la inclusión de los pagos de facilitación, el concepto de transacción económica internacional, la relevancia del error de tipo en estos casos o la esterilidad de ciertos instrumentos de represión por cuestiones procesales. Este análisis aboca a concluir la necesidad de determinadas reformas legislativas, fundamentalmente de la LOPJ; si bien estas parecen ser tan pertinentes como una serie de medidas de concienciación social. Palabras clave: cohecho, transacción económica internacional, pagos de facilitación, principio de personalidad activa, pseudo-atipicidad. Abstract: The aim of this research is carrying out a critical analysis about the Spanish law concerning international bribery. After studying the general matters, some controversial aspects regarding the topic are addressed, such as the inclusion of facilitation payments, the concept of international business, the importance of the so called “error de tipo” in these cases or the futility of certain rules because of procedural issues. This analysis leads to conclude that committing reforms in this field is necessary, especially in the procedural aspect. Yet, such reforms seem to be as relevant as a battery of policies to promote greater social awareness. Keywords: bribery, international business, facilitation payments, active personality principle, “pseudo non-criminality”.

France

Since the introduction of the offense of bribery of foreign public officials under French law in 2000, France has made undeniable progress in combating corruption. Numerous reforms have then been adopted (expansion of the scope of criminal prosecution, facilitation of the seizure and confiscation of assets in criminal matters, increasing of possible penalties, creation of the National Financial Prosecutor, . . .). French law criminalizes active and passive bribery, private and public bribery, domestic and foreign/international bribery as well as influence peddling. Nevertheless, the OECD was particularly critical of France over the last years. The French legislature recently took such criticism into account and strove to make further progress in preventing, detecting, and punishing corruption in order to reach the highest international standards. Law No. 2016-1691, known as “Sapin II law,” recently enhanced the French anti-bribery system by introducing a new duty for certain companies and their executives to prevent bribery and influence peddling by implementing a compliance program to prevent and detect such offenses. Sapin II law therefore testifies to France’s determination to effectively fight corruption.

CIRCUMNAVIGATING NON-EQUIVALENCE IN LEGAL LANGUAGES: A TRILINGUAL CASE STUDY OF GENERIC-SPECIFIC CONCEPTS AND TERMS

Studies of Language for specific purposes (LSP) aim to mastering particular terms of the target discourse community in the given field of knowledge. This cannot be achieved without comprehending the concepts denoted by the terms and their generic-specific relations which is not always the case in popular usage by media and translation. The given research is a small-scale analysis of conceptualisation and denotation of bribery offences in different legal settings (the international conventions and three national legal systems – the UK, Lithuanian and Russian) intended to expose the way of circumnavigating non-equivalency for LSP/ESP (English for Specific Purposes) learners. Firstly, bribery concepts in two international conventions are analysed and their terminological denotations in English, Lithuanian and Russian versions of the conventions are extracted. Secondly, functional equivalents of the international bribery concepts (the generic concept of bribery and the concepts forming the dichotomies of bribery types and forms) in the UK, LT and RU national legal settings are determined. Finally, terminological counterparts denoting the bribery concepts in the investigated legal settings are established. The analysis is performed using the methodology of contrastive conceptual analysis which focuses on logical relationship among the concepts, namely hierarchical genus-species relations, in lexical semantics referred to as hyper-hyponymic relations. The methodology enables to compare conceptualisation and denotation of bribery offences in three LSP have and highlight their incongruities. The procedure and the results described in the paper are believed to be valuable to the learners and teachers of LSP/ESP, to the translators and could enhance efficient international professional communication.Key words: conceptual-terminological system, non-equivalence, legal terminology, bribery

Petty Bribery Qualification Issues

The article is devoted to the problems of the qualification of petty bribery crimes. The article also touches upon the problem criminal low assessment and proportionate punishment of group crimes of petty bribery; the problem of the qualification of mediation in bribery; issue of choosing a criminal qualification of petty international bribery depending on the subject of the crime. The problem of petty bribery qualification and assessment of actions mediator in this crime. Possible qualification options are offered with specific examples.

SUBJECT OF TRANSNATIONAL BRIBERY IN THE CRIMINAL LEGISLATION OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES: THE MAIN APPROACHES

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the criminal legislation of the USA, Germany and France in terms of responsibility for the regulation of active and passive bribery of foreign public officials and officials of public international organizations. The focus is on consistency between national law and the provisions of the Convention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. On the basis of the comparative and formal-legal methods, the author reveals a number of features that allow to speak of a legal models to counter transnational bribery. The study of criminal law, special laws and judicial precedents it possible to designate a tendency to expand the subjects of international bribery by members of the judiciary, a representative of non-governmental organizations and to identify main approaches to the development of Russia’s criminal policy.