Supreme Court may revise concept of corruption.
The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) will redefine the concepts of crimes such as corruption and money laundering, establishing parameters that will apply throughout the country from now on; one of the main questions is whether official donations to political campaigns, in exchange for some advantage, can be considered money laundering, in addition to corruption; political parties will argue that registered donations cannot even be called corruption; however, the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that legal donations, if made in exchange for some undue advantage, involve not only corruption but also money laundering.
247 - The Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) will redefine the concepts of crimes such as corruption and money laundering, establishing parameters that will apply throughout the country from now on. One of the main issues is whether official donations to political campaigns, in exchange for some advantage, can be considered money laundering, in addition to corruption. Political parties will argue that registered donations cannot even be called corruption. The Public Prosecutor's Office, however, considers that legal donations, if made in exchange for some undue advantage, involve not only corruption but also money laundering.
The information is from Report by Maíra Magro no Valor.
"It is undoubtedly a form of money laundering, because the politician asks the company to pay bribes and receives the money in a seemingly legal way," says José Robalinho Cavalcanti, president of the National Association of Federal Prosecutors (ANPR). He compares the act to receiving funds in an overseas account. "Both are intended to conceal the receipt of undue advantage."
Lawyer Pierpaolo Cruz Bottini, who defends executives and politicians in the Lava Jato corruption scandal, argues that official donations in exchange for undue advantage may be a form of corruption, but not money laundering. "If the undue advantage requested is the official donation, there is no concealment or dissimulation, since the donation itself is the advantage," he states. The difference may be subtle, but classifying the conduct as one or more crimes has a direct impact on the sentence imposed.
According to criminal lawyer Pedro Ivo Velloso, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) will have to examine the boundaries that differentiate corruption and money laundering in the Lava Jato case. He recalls that, in the Mensalão trial, the court changed its position on this point when judging the dissenting opinions, appeals used to question decisions that generated disagreement among the justices. "In the dissenting opinions, the Supreme Court reversed its decision and understood that the conduct of receiving an undue advantage, even in a hidden way, is not money laundering, but only corruption. After all, nobody receives money giving a receipt," says Velloso. According to him, in the Lava Jato proceedings, the Public Prosecutor's Office does not make this distinction, considering the same conduct as both corruption and money laundering. Therefore, the issue will return to the STF.
Another important discussion will involve the criteria needed to identify when corruption has occurred.