Compliance is a prerequisite for the high-quality development of enterprises, and the construction of corporate compliance is a hot area of common concern for enterprise managers and judicial practitioners. 2023, in the afternoon, Beijing King&Capital Law Firm, together with WKE, co-organized the "Seminar on Criminal Compliance and Protection of the Legal Rights and Interests of Private Entrepreneurs", which was attended by more than 60 people, including legal directors of private enterprises and lawyers from inside and outside the firm, More than 60 people, including experts, scholars, legal directors of private enterprises and lawyers inside and outside the firm, attended the event.
The event was hosted by Chu Changzhi, Managing Partner and CEO of King&Capital Law Firm, while Liang Yali, Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm and Director of King&Capital Criminal Defense Research Center, Xu Ying, Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm, and Xia Jun, Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm, shared their views on the topic.
Scene of the event
Mr. Tian Wenchang, Advisor of Criminal Committee of All-China Lawyers Association and Honorary Director of King&Capital Law Firm, delivered a welcome speech for this event. Mr. Tian Wenchang has long been concerned about the legal risk prevention and control of private enterprises, and on different occasions called for a change in the concept of "the original sin of private enterprises", and at the same time emphasized that "lawyers have a lot to offer in the construction of corporate compliance". He pointed out that in the past few years, in the practice of non-prosecution compliance, compared with the procuratorial authorities, the initiative of lawyers has not been given full play to, law firms should actively mobilize the team of different professional fields to jointly discuss the compliance program, and give practical and feasible professional advice in the face of the uncertainty of the practical problems.
Mr. Tian Wenchang
In July this year, the Legal Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) published the Criminal Law Amendment (XII) (Draft), which added provisions to penalize corruption-related crimes committed by insiders of private enterprises, and put forward new requirements for the compliance governance of private enterprises. Mr. Liang Yali interpreted the background of the draft amendments to the Criminal Law, the legislative trend, and the conflict and connection with the compliance reform of the enterprises involved in the case, in light of the content of the draft amendments to the Criminal Law. Combined with their own handling of mining enterprises accused of major liability accidents, private lending disputes "black", private entrepreneurs accused of contract fraud three cases, Liang Yali lawyer said, judicial practice, entrepreneurs still need to pay attention to the personal freedom of the phenomenon of criminal means of intervention in economic disputes are still frequent, the legitimate property of private enterprises still need to be protected equally. Equal protection.
LiangYaLi lawyers think, administrative law enforcement, criminal justice in all kinds of problems may lead to private enterprises and management personnel legal risk dramatically, lawyers will become an important helper of enterprise compliance governance. In the process of private enterprise compliance governance, lawyers should do a good job for the enterprise before the stage of "compliance physical examination", regular risk identification; in the aftermath of the stage to actively promote compliance and rectification, according to the risk categories and characteristics of enterprises, and flexibly determine the way of compliance.
Mr. Liang Yali
Next, Ms. Xu Ying shared her views on the topic of "Operation Process and Key Points Tips for Compliance Non-prosecution in Criminal-related Cases of Private Enterprises", analyzing the basic issues of compliance non-prosecution. She said that compliance non-prosecution mainly applies to misdemeanor cases, but does not exclude felony cases; it applies to both unit crimes and individual crimes closely related to production and business activities. For private enterprises, compliance with leniency has three paths to achieve, respectively, effective compliance to block the establishment of corporate crime, effective compliance to become a relative non-prosecution of the cause of the enterprise, effective compliance to become a cause of the enterprise crime mitigating punishment.
Xu Ying also on the judicial practice of enterprise compliance in the unit responsibility and personal responsibility, enterprise compliance and plea bargaining relationship, enterprise compliance and criminal settlement relationship for in-depth discussion, a detailed analysis of compliance without prosecution of the specific operational steps, compliance commitment, the development of compliance programs, third-party supervision and evaluation, public hearings and other aspects of the key points of the prompt. She emphasized that compliance is not everything for enterprises involved in cases, and the significance of compliance beforehand is far greater than that afterward, and private enterprises should have a correct understanding of this.
Attorney Xu Ying
Subsequently, Mr. Xia Jun shared his views on the topic of "Risk Identification and Compliance Advice for Private Enterprises Involved in Corruption Crimes", which further focused the event on the topic of private enterprises involved in corruption crimes. According to Mr. Xia Jun, the current situation of corruption-related crimes in private enterprises is not optimistic, due to the wide distribution of corruption risks in private enterprises and the increasing diversification of corruption behaviors, there are still a lot of problems to be solved in order to achieve compliance governance of corruption risks in enterprises. Mr. Xia Jun said, anti-corruption criminal compliance is a general trend, the compliance needs of private enterprises have become more urgent, has gradually changed from "can be done or not" to "must be done".
Combining the typical cases of compliance reform pilot cases released by the Supreme Prosecutor and representative cases handled by herself, Ms. Xia Jun explained several common forms of corruption, such as kickbacks, discounts, handling fees, gifts and hospitality risks, to help private enterprises quickly identify criminal risks in business transactions. She also put forward six practical suggestions for compliance programs, advocating the comprehensive construction of a corporate compliance culture starting with the creation of an anti-bribery culture, as well as the establishment of a sound risk monitoring system and response system.
Mr. Xia Jun
After the sharing, the three lawyers and the attending guests had an interactive exchange, which was widely praised by the attending guests. During the event, Tina Zhang, Product Manager of WKF first, also introduced its newly launched Criminal Compliance Module to the guests.
