ON THE COMPLIANCE OF THE PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE 185.4 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION WITH THE LAWS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Raiding, along with corruption, has long been one of the most pressing problems for domestic business. For incomprehensible reasons, in contrast to the corruption crimes, which received due attention from the legislator and legal scholars, crimes committed in the stock market, after their reckless introduction, have been deprived of attention for almost a decade. At the same time, the most dangerous methods of raider seizures currently do not fall under criminal law prohibitions at all, and the existing prohibitions, in turn, have such a low legal potential that leaving this problem without attention raises serious concerns. We consider the design and application of Article 185.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – Obstruction or illegal restriction of the rights of securities holders, intended to become the “flagship” of anti-raiding legislation. Through a systematic analysis of the prescriptions of the criminal law and a few judicial practice, we identify the low quality of criminal law prohibitions included in Article 185.4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, we establish and substantiate the impossibility of causing damage in the required amount, we prove the lack of practical need for the relevant norm, we formulate a proposal for its exclusion from the text of the criminal law in full.