Police interference often disastrous for businesses – Russian Prosecutor General

MOSCOW. Feb 21 (Interfax) – Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said he was concerned with groundless interference of police in commercial disputes.

“The practice of opening groundless criminal cases, arresting enterprises’ accounts and assets hasn’t been eradicated,” Chaika said during his speech at the all-Russian prosecutors’ conference on protecting rights of businessmen.

Chaika said that “the number of operational procedures on legal entities isn’t decreasing, while the rate of registered economic crimes has considerably declined (15%).”

“Only a substantial amount of them results in criminal cases, the rest turn out to be unconfirmed,” Chaika said.

“The consequences of such interference in operational procedures are quite disastrous in some cases – from reputation damage to bankruptcy,” he said.

Russian First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman said prosecutors declined a half of all business inspection motions suggested by regulatory bodies as illegal.

“For the past four years prosecutors have considered around 5 million motions by oversight bodies to inspect businesses. And one in two has been turned down and considered to be unlawful interference in business,” Buksman said.

Buksman said that practically the same could be said about proposals to hold spot checks on businesses.