Prosecutor General's Office invites entrepreneurs to be whistleblowers in cases of pressure on business

The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine is asking entrepreneurs to become whistleblowers in cases against officials and law enforcement officers who illegally put pressure on business, Ukrinform reports.

Oleksiy Bonyuk, Head of the Department of Criminal Legal Policy and Investment Protection of the Prosecutor General's Office, said this during a roundtable discussion at Ukrinform titled "Seven Cases of Illegal Pressure on Business and Presentation of Draft Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code."

According to him, when studying the circumstances of most cases of illegal pressure on business, it turns out that domestic officials are involved in one way or another. It is very difficult to catch them on offenses without the assistance of the businessmen themselves, who succumb to pressure or agree to "resolve the issue" with bribes. Often, entrepreneurs agree to pay because of the decades-long distrust of the law enforcement system.

"But I think you have no reason not to trust our department, the Prosecutor General. Therefore, I ask you: if any official has not even yet expressed an intention to "put pressure" on you or involve you in illegal actions, but you see that everything is going to that point, please come to us. We will do our best to keep it confidential so that no one finds out that you have become a whistleblower. But without such a proactive position of business in exposing unscrupulous officials and preventing them from making unlawful decisions, we will not solve the problem," Bonyuk said.

He explained that it is often clear at the first stages of investigations conducted by his department that the business acted honestly, but it is very difficult to distinguish between the actions of an entrepreneur and the illegal activities of an official.

A representative of the Prosecutor General's Office also emphasized the need to distinguish between deliberate and forced collaboration in legislation. In his opinion, it is inappropriate to consider any economic activity related to the aggressor country or its representatives a crime.

"This is openly criticized by international experts in humanitarian and criminal law. But in the process of law enforcement, prosecutors and investigators have to work with this disposition. Therefore, changes are needed at the legislative level. We need to find a line that will separate illegal activities in relations with the aggressor, financing its army, etc. from the situation when people are actually held hostage in the temporarily occupied territories," Bonyuk said.

As an example, he cited a situation where entrepreneurs were selling water and food, engaged in social activities, and after the invaders arrived, they were forced to continue working to support their families. Formally, they fall under the articles of the Criminal Code that punish collaboration.

As reported, in 2020, the Prosecutor General's Office created the Department of Criminal Law Policy and Investment Protection, which communicates with business representatives regarding criminal cases. Last year, the department received 220 applications from businesses about unjustified pressure from law enforcement.