How to Spot Risks

Not long ago, I received a phone call from a legal friend, two plainclothes police came to their company, presented their documents, took away the head of the company's technical department, and asked what should be done next? As soon as I heard it, I was immediately alarmed: have you verified the identity of the police? Have you contacted the local police station? What identification are you presenting? Summons or detention? What's the reason? Take people where? Have the families been notified? After a barrage of seven questions, the legal friend fell silent.

This is not uncommon in many private companies, where some business leaders are adept at dealing with regulators, but often lack the right approach when the police come to their door.

As the saying goes, "nothing goes wrong", before the police come to the door, there are many signs of criminal investigation may have appeared. If the enterprise can hire a professional criminal lawyer, correctly assess the risks in the business process, and make a highly sensitive prediction of the external business environment of the enterprise, and formulate preventive measures in time, it can be used before the police come to the door. Prevent risks well.

First, before the police come to the door, through the criminal risk control early warning mechanism to carry out risk prediction in a timely manner

1. Set up special departments or full-time personnel to deal with emergencies, decision-making, coordination and processing institutions. It is suggested that when recruiting the above specialized personnel, enterprises should screen their employment experience, and timely "see the pearls" for talents with corresponding work experience, or select employees based on their response to existing emergencies among existing employees.

2. Continuously track and monitor possible criminal risks, pay close attention to the development of the situation, identify and report the signs of criminal crisis in time to the person in charge of the enterprise, and provide preliminary analysis and treatment plans.

Second, how to identify the "fog" of criminal risk warning?

1. Analyze predictions from news reports

The government's special governance activities for a particular industry in various news media, major document policy changes in an industry, and even the speeches of leaders at some major forums may indicate the potential business risk problems of the industry. For example, the disclosure of information on the platform of the China Internet Finance Association, the publicity information on the official website of the banking and insurance Regulatory bureaus, and the main speeches in some financial forums, etc., in the eyes of venture investors, are the outlet for the pig to take off, and on the other hand, it precisely predicts the early warning of corporate criminal risk control.

2. Actively face the administrative inspection of the competent departments

In the category of crimes that disrupt the financial management order or endanger tax collection and administration, there is often a phenomenon of "punishment before punishment", that is, administrative organs or competent departments generally conduct administrative investigations first, find that the case is suspected of criminal crimes, and then hand over the clues involved to the public security organs. Administrative investigation may be carried out in the form of administrative inquiry, written investigation, inspection, etc. The content of administrative investigation will be related to the progress of the case, so when the enterprise is faced with the investigation of an administrative illegal act by the administrative organ, it should be treated with caution to avoid missing the opportunity to make up for it.

3. Prevent the butterfly effect from the crisis events of related units

Related units include business partners or competitors of the enterprise, if they receive administrative investigation or judicial investigation, should also cause the enterprise to attach great importance. Sometimes, some business leaders often have the idea of "each person sweeps the snow in front of his own door", what does the company next door have to do with me? If it is a competitor, it is God help me also, watching the fire and even applauding! As everyone knows, the butterfly effect in the entire industry is everywhere. For example, last year, the public safety bureau of a county in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, was designated by the superior to investigate the suspected illegal operation of a payment APP, and the rest of the competitors had not had time to congratulate themselves, they found that their own payment platform also had problems.

4. Sensitive investigation of enterprise assets and account anomalies

When an enterprise's assets or bank accounts are seized and frozen, it means that the enterprise has been involved in the case, and it should be timely understood which law enforcement agency, administrative organ or judicial organ, what law enforcement authority is, and what the specific cause is. The actual business address and registered address of many enterprises are inconsistent, resulting in enterprises simply can not receive legal documents, so the corresponding judicial measures are also late. I once encountered a company, when the accounts receivable into the company's account, the company's financial department is ready to withdraw funds only to find that the account has been frozen for a long time, the company's business suddenly in trouble, in a hurry to find that the company has actually been involved in a criminal case, then seek the help of lawyers, for the enterprise, it is likely to miss the critical moment of life and death.

How to solve the risk

After risk warning and investigation, if it is found that the enterprise does have criminal risks, how should it be resolved before the police come to the door? To sum up, it can be divided into three steps:

The first step: self-check the criminal risk point, that is, find the cause and source of the risk

Enterprises should promptly take measures to identify the source of risk, such as subsidiaries, branches, business departments or specific personnel suspected of violating the law, immediately suspend all work, timely control the further expansion of the situation, quickly carry out related business investigations of related departments or affiliated companies, and fully grasp the facts of all suspected violations that have occurred. If necessary, the investigation situation should be fixed in the form of internal work notes or meeting minutes to form evidence.

For suspected illegal departments and personnel, relevant evidence should be fixed, at this time do not delete work records or related documents, the person in charge of the enterprise or the legal person should immediately collect and save the evidence favorable to the enterprise, to avoid the enterprise because of the personal behavior of some employees into a more passive situation.

I once handled a case of goods suspected of selling counterfeit registered trademarks. There was indeed a phenomenon of genuine and fake sales in the stores of the enterprises involved. Because of fear, the person in charge of the store destroyed the sales record during the inspection by the market supervision staff, thinking that there was no solid evidence for such investigation. As everyone knows, after the transfer to the public security organs, the sales price of fake goods has become the key evidence for sentencing, if the actual sales price of fake goods cannot be confirmed, the public prosecution will refer to the sentencing basis according to the sales price of genuine goods provided by genuine suppliers.

The second step: cooperate with the administrative investigation and stop the loss in time

In practice, I often encounter a company boss who asks a lawyer to help see how to avoid inspection. In fact, administrative inspection cannot be avoided, only confronted. Actively face the various regulatory measures of the administrative departments, do everything possible to stop the case at the administrative investigation stage, and avoid the formal criminal proceedings of the enterprise after the case is transferred from the administrative organs to the judicial organs. Especially when it comes to tax audit cases, companies often try every means to avoid taxes, in fact, these practices are like children in front of tax inspectors, at this time should be frank and frank, actively cooperate with the inspection, and strive to take tax administrative penalties as the end of the case.

Step 3: Professional people do professional things

Once the enterprise is inevitably suspected of criminal crimes, the person in charge of the enterprise should promptly hire a professional team of criminal lawyers, timely carry out effective defense work, specific problem specific analysis, and timely judge whether there is a major risk in the business model of the enterprise, or the company's personal illegal and criminal behavior caused by. If there is a major risk in the business model, the business model should be changed in a timely manner under the guidance of lawyers to avoid greater losses.

How to respond to a Criminal investigation

When the police really come to the door, the person in charge of the enterprise should not panic and avoid, timely understand their relevant litigation rights and obligations to professional lawyers, and calmly respond to the criminal proceedings after a preliminary understanding of the process.

Criminal investigation is generally divided into preliminary examination (preliminary investigation) and formal investigation. Initial investigation refers to the preliminary examination and verification of criminal clues or evidence materials before filing a case after the public security organ accepts the report (report). At this time, the public security organ may take such means as inquiry, inquiry, investigation, appraisal and collection of evidence materials to conduct investigation without restricting personal freedom and property rights. After the formal filing, the public security organ can summon and detain the suspects involved. We can judge the stage involved by the legal documents produced by the public security organs.

To sum up, the investigation of public security organs on enterprises usually focuses on two aspects, that is, providing evidence and accepting inquiry (or interrogation), then how to deal with it?

I. Precautions for providing evidence:

(1) The enterprise shall provide the corresponding materials in accordance with the evidence collection notice issued by the public security organ, and shall have the right to refuse to provide any material beyond the scope of the notice;

2. The enterprise has the right to request the public security organ to issue a list of evidence or a list of documents of seized items when taking away evidence materials, and carefully check the name, quantity, original or photocopy of the evidence materials.

3. When obtaining permission from the public security organ for the evidentiary materials to be retrieved, the backup files can be retained.

4. When the enterprise provides the copy of evidence, it shall stamp the copy, indicate the date of provision and the handler, and scan and file at the same time.

二. Points to note when being questioned or interrogated:

1. Make it clear whether you are being interrogated or questioned. The interrogation record applies to the criminal suspect, indicating that the person involved may be subject to criminal coercive measures, and the interrogation record applies to the witness.

2. When being questioned, the person under investigation should remain calm, truthfully state the objective facts that he knows about the case, and cannot conceal the facts or make false statements if he really cannot remember them.

3. Before signing the record, carefully check the record: whether the content of the record is what you said, whether the original words are the original meaning, if there is incomplete and incorrect, be sure to put forward in time, and ask for supplementation or modification. The person under investigation shall have the right to amend or correct the record on his own, and may refuse to sign the record if it is untrue.

(4) In addition to being interrogated or questioned, the person under investigation has the right to write his own materials.

(5) If the person under investigation is placed in criminal detention after interrogation, he has the right to immediately hire a professional criminal lawyer to provide legal services for him.