Layout of People's Daily, September 7
"The procuratorate not only helped us purify the internal workplace ecology, but also helped us improve the system and make us more confident in development!" Not long ago, in the face of the prosecutor of the Yuecheng District Procuratorate in Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, who came to visit back, the person in charge of a household goods company in Zhejiang said.
In recent years, procuratorial organs have adhered to the combination of punishment according to law and equal protection in handling cases, correctly grasped the criminal policy of combining leniency and strictness, performed their duties in accordance with the law, and continuously improved the quality and efficiency of case handling, and at the same time combined with the compliance work of the enterprises involved in the case to help enterprises improve internal governance, effectively prevent legal risks, and escort the healthy development of private enterprises.
Finding out the "inner ghost" of the enterprise
Handle one case and govern one
When a household goods company in Zhejiang audited its internal accounts, it was found that Lei had repeatedly applied for reserve funds and public relations fees in the name of online brand operation, but had never handed over the remaining money. After the company called the police, the case was transferred to the Yuecheng District Procuratorate for review and prosecution. In the face of interrogation, Lei argued that the company did not stipulate a time limit for the return of the reserve funds, and that he only used part of the public funds temporarily, and when he had more money, he immediately returned the money to the company.
Is this really the case? The prosecutor began to investigate and found that the company did have management loopholes in the reserves, and that Lei also had a registered company under his name and may have some ability to repay. The prosecutor "solved" the problem from Lei, and finally found out that Lei had used false receipts to reimburse the company, and his claim that "there is a way to help the company's public relations" was also fabricated, and the company under Lei's name had been out of operation for many years, owed foreign debts, and he had squandered the embezzled public funds.
It was found that Lei took advantage of his position to fabricate the money for "brushing gifts" for the company's live broadcast room, finding public relations for friends who worked on e-commerce platforms, etc., and applied for a total of more than 180,000 yuan from the company for reserve funds and public relations fees, and took them for himself. In the end, Lei committed the crime of embezzlement of duty and was sentenced by the court to one year in prison.
In response to the loopholes in the company's financial and personnel management exposed by the case, the Yuecheng District Procuratorate issued procuratorial recommendations to the company.
On July 31, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the Opinions on Lawfully Punishing and Preventing Crimes of Insiders of Private Enterprises Infringing on the Lawful Rights and Interests of Private Enterprises and Creating a Good Legal Environment for the Development of the Private Economy. "Behind insider crime cases, there are problems such as imperfect corporate governance system, lack of internal prevention mechanism, and weak concept of rule of law among practitioners." The relevant person in charge of the Fourth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate said that while punishing crimes in accordance with the law, the procuratorial organs have always been committed to helping private enterprises strengthen their own compliance construction, improve the system and mechanism for preventing crimes committed by internal personnel, and promote the realization of "handling one case and governing one case".
Leniency and strictness
Lower judicial handling to enterprises
The impact of normal production and operation
A company received an anonymous whistleblower letter alleging that employees of the company's technical service department collected claims rebates from agents on the grounds that the product quality appraisal was unqualified. This led to a huge case of embezzlement of duties.
It turned out that 14 employees such as Tao and Zhou of the company joined hands with 25 sales agents across the country to make false claims, and judged the broken tires without quality problems to meet the company's "three guarantees" claim situation, resulting in a loss of more than 24 million yuan for the company. During this period, the sales agent returned about 50% of the false claim income to Tao and others, and most of the rest was given to the lower distributors to maintain customers and increase tire sales.
After the case, the Changshu Municipal Procuratorate of Jiangsu Province intervened in advance and found that the 25 sales agents involved in the case operated 80% of the company's sales market nationwide, and that the vast majority of the 32 criminal suspects involved in these 25 sales agents were the legal representatives of the enterprise, the main shareholders or actual operators of the enterprise. If all the persons in charge of the agents involved in the case are arrested and prosecuted, the company's sales market may be greatly affected.
"While adhering to the strict handling of cases in accordance with the law, we carefully study the policies and legal standards for handling cases, and in accordance with the criminal policy of combining leniency and strictness, we treat criminal suspects with different circumstances in layers, so as to create conditions for the normal production and operation of the enterprises involved in the case as much as possible." Gu Wanyan, the procurator handling the case, introduced that on the basis of facilitating the full refund of the person in charge of the agency and the partial refund of the company's employees, a total of more than 16 million yuan of losses of the victim unit, the procuratorate combined the circumstances of surrender, compensation understanding, admission of guilt and punishment, etc., relatively did not prosecute 20 agency leaders with minor criminal circumstances, prosecuted the remaining 12 agency leaders and recommended the application of probation, and filed a public prosecution against 14 company employees, all of which were accepted by the court.
Based on the circumstances of the case, the Changshu Municipal Procuratorate issued procuratorial recommendations to the company, proposing suggestions such as optimizing and disclosing claims settlement standards and improving the internal supervision system. "The procuratorate uses professional wisdom and accurate services to help us build and improve the criminal risk prevention and control mechanism, and help enterprises develop steadily and far-reaching." The deputy general manager of the company said.
Compliance rectification
Promoting enterprises to build a "firewall" of legal risks
In April 2022, the Shunyi Branch of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau transferred an insurance fraud case to the Shunyi District Procuratorate. In this case, six people, including Li Mou, an employee of Company A, and Zhang Mouyi, an employee of Company B, conspired with two customers who visited the store to repair their vehicles in order to maintain customers and improve performance, and fabricated a cause of danger by falsifying the scene of the accident and deliberately creating a collision accident, and defrauded the insurance claim payment totaling more than 410,000 yuan.
"After the case, the insurance company questioned the management of our two companies, and the insurance service came to a standstill." During the handling of the case, the responsible persons of Company A and Company B urgently sought help from the Shunyi District Procuratorate and took the initiative to make a commitment to comply with the operation.
Zhang Jingren, the prosecutor handling the case, said that considering that the high incidence of insurance fraud crimes in the auto service industry seriously affects financial security and restricts the healthy development of enterprises, the procuratorate decided to carry out compliance rectification for the two companies.
In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of insurance companies, the procuratorate takes the economic responsibility of enterprises as an element in reviewing the implementation of compliance rectification, and at the same time actively promotes the recovery of stolen goods and losses by explaining the law to criminal suspects, and all the losses of the defrauded insurance companies are recovered. After compliance rectification, Company A and Company B have achieved effective control over the operational risk points of insurance claims business, insurance claims data has also become normal, and cooperation with insurance companies has become more standardized and smooth. Both companies upgraded their partner ratings within insurance companies from B to A.
The Shunyi District Procuratorate, together with experts from logistics industry associations and market supervision departments, issued a compliance inspection report after a three-month compliance inspection period after a series of on-site inspections, optimization of rectification plans, and compliance inspections, believing that Company A and Company B had implemented the compliance rectification requirements. Based on the facts of the crime, the company's compliance rectification, and the admission of guilt and punishment, the Shunyi District Procuratorate prosecuted Li Moujia in accordance with the law, and made a decision not to prosecute Zhang and eight others. According to the compliance rectification of the enterprise, the court adopted the procuratorate's sentencing recommendation on Li Moujia to be leniently punished, and sentenced Li Moujia to 2 years and 6 months imprisonment and fined him 30,000 yuan.
The relevant person in charge of the Supreme People's Procuratorate said that the procuratorial organ will strengthen the theoretical research and practical exploration of compliance reform of the enterprises involved in the case, promote the construction of internal control supervision mechanisms focusing on compliance construction by private enterprises, and promote the law-abiding and compliant operation of private enterprises; Accurately grasp the policy scale in the performance of duties and handling cases, punish and prevent crimes committed by personnel within private enterprises infringing on the lawful rights and interests of private enterprises in accordance with the law, and create a good legal environment for the development of private enterprises.
Source: People's Daily