Court over the Central Bank

Frenkel's case brought prosecutors in the Central Bank of the discussion of banking supervision at yesterday's parliamentary hearings from the very beginning was expected to be increased. Interest in the topic was fueled by the public polemic of the accused of organizing the murder of the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Andrei Kozlov Alexei Frenkel and the Chairman of the Central Bank Sergey Ignatiev, dedicated to the practice of banking supervision carried out by the Central Bank. This polemic did not pass by the attention of the General Prosecutor's Office. The performance of the First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman became a "nail" of parliamentary hearings.

Yesterday's parliamentary hearings were prepared by the Duma committee on credit organizations and financial markets long before the murder of Andrei Kozlov. However, the events that followed him ultimately turned an ordinary discussion in the State Duma in a slurry in the passions of the Political performance. In particular, because of the case of Frenkel.

Frenkeliad

The "cooperation" of law enforcement agencies with the Central Bank always did not work out very smoothly. In 1997, even a certain “Declaration of Intentions” appeared. Which remained a declaration. In 2004, the Central Bank made the initiative to prepare a joint instructive letter with the Prosecutor General. But the letter did not work out - the then First Deputy Prosecutor General Yuri Biryukov considered the project inappropriate.

The last time the prosecutor's office checked the Central Bank in 1998 after the financial crisis.

On September 13, 2006, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Andrei Kozlov was killed, who was engaged in the hottest “business” - the selection of banks to receive deposits in the insurance system. The selection did not pass 191 bank, 27 of which then went to court. On October 2, 2006, a prosecutor’s landing landed in the Central Bank - 25 people. The check lasted a month and a half. The result is modest: four requirements for the elimination of minor violations. On January 11, 2007, the prosecutor’s office arrests Alexei Frenkel, accusing him of preparing the murder of Kozlov, who, incidentally, was noted of the 1998 prosecutor’s audit: “It was established that Kozlov, holding the position of first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, had ruble and foreign exchange bills in several commercial banks, which were credited to the funds received from the State Unitary Enterprise. Only in its ruble account in the Autobank for 1998, 12 payments totaling about 560 million rubles were received, and $ 42 thousand for a foreign exchange account. ”

A week after Frenkel’s arrest, his letters began to appear, in which he accuses the representatives of the Bank of Russia of lobbying for the interests of four banking groups that “cash out” funds. According to Frenkel, among customers of these groups, representatives of the State Duma, the Federation Council, law enforcement agencies and courts.

Frenkel answered the head of the Central Bank Sergey Ignatiev, who not only refuted the accusations, but also doubted that Frenkel himself was the author of the indictment. The reaction to the letters of Frenkel from the Prosecutor General’s Office was much more active.

Ignatievschina

Yesterday's hearings were actually a court session. Head of the Central Bank Sergey Ignatiev - the accused; Chairman of the banking committee of the State Duma Vladislav Reznik - prosecutor; First Deputy Prosecutor Governor Alexander Buksman - Prosecutor; the votes of representatives of commercial banks - a collective lawyer; State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov is a silent judge.

"The main means of state coercion is the prosecution of the guilty person liable in cases and the manner prescribed in the legislation. The main legal instrument, punishing the sword, is the Code of Administrative Offenses," Vladislav Reznik began his speech. The first accusation: "The Bank of Russia created regulatory regulation parallel to the Code of Administrative Offenses, chose a special ideology of supervision, the basis of which was the support not on federal legislation, but on its own power and strength." According to him, as a result, "any sanction can theoretically determine for any real or imaginary violation of the regulatory acts of the Bank of Russia," as a result of which "the principle of the presumption of innocence is excluded from the activities of the Bank of Russia."

Accusation No. 2: the Central Bank is the opportunity to "create an offense at its discretion, apply responsibility measures for it, and then recall a license to carry out banking operations." The accusation No. 3: “The Central Bank appropriated the powers that do not belong to it (referring to the powers of Rosfinmonitoring. -“ Gazeta ”) and created its own system of rules, within the framework of which began to punish banks for completely legal operations, legally covering this with references to the law on legalization.” Each of the accusations was supported by an impressive evidence base with the application of court decisions, laws, as well as letters and instructions of the Central Bank itself. Conclusion of the prosecution: "Bringing a supervisory policy in accordance with the law must be made to the body of supervision, which will be organizationally separated from the Bank of Russia, that is, it is time to think about the allocation of banking supervision of the Bank of Russia."

Loud applause in the hall.

The judge (Boris Gryzlov) gives the floor to the accused.

“Unfortunately, I will not be able to answer all your questions,” began Sergey Ignatiev. “He wrote tonight, not knowing what you will say,” he made excuses. The essence of his speech boils down to the fact that no matter what claims are presented to the Central Bank, all his actions are aimed at the good - at the fight against the so -called fictitious operations, primarily for the cashing of funds. "The volume of fictitious cashing operations is from about 50 billion to 80 billion rubles per month. The volume of fictitious transactions for the transfer of funds from non -residents is from $ 3 billion to 4 billion per month. In total, such fictitious operations amount to about 1.5 to 2 trillion rubles per year. At the same time, the loss of consolidated budget, including state extra -budgetary funds, amount to, according to my careful estimates, from 500, from 500 up to 800 billion rubles a year, ”said Ignatiev. "What do we do when identifying such fictitious operations?" - the accused asked himself a question. - We draw the attention of the heads of banks to such fictitious operations, we invite you to meetings. In the vast majority of cases, the reaction of the heads of banks is quite adequate. "That is, there is an informal contact. After such" meetings ", commercial banks themselves find legal ways to get rid of such undesirable customers."

It is not surprising that the Prosecutor General’s Office became interested in such informal relations of the Central Bank and commercial banks.

Booksmanomics

"The practice of prosecutorial supervision indicates that the state of legality in the banking sector cannot be recognized as satisfactory. The violations are numerous and common, the criminal sector has reached a high level. It must be admitted that negative processes have not received law enforcement agencies that regulate the bodies and the Central Bank of the operational and adequate response," said Buppman. Its conclusion: "The Bank of Russia and its territorial bodies do not yet provide the proper implementation of the functions assigned to them." According to him, "legal acts issued by the Bank of Russia often contain wordings that create conditions for unreasonably wide variability when making a decision both about bringing violators to responsibility and when considering issues of issuing licenses to credit organizations, admitting them to the system of deposits of individuals." “This creates ideal conditions for corruption manifestations,” he emphasized.

The Prosecutor General’s Office proposes to solve this problem like this (last week these proposals were sent to the president): “To lay in the law such a mechanism that bank employees did not have the opportunity to illegally combine the interests of service with their own commercial interests.” According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, they now successfully combine them: “They can acquire shares and shares of credit organizations and actively do this. At the time of verification of more than 1.5 thousand employees of the Bank of Russia, including managers of different levels, as well as employees who perform directly supervisory functions, were holders of shares of credit organizations.” By the way, during the break of the meeting, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Gennady Melikyan admitted that he and many other Central Bank employees have shares, and mainly these are shares of Sberbank. In addition, according to Buppman, "a number of leaders of the Bank of Russia and its units are included in the management bodies of organizations engaged in activities in the financial markets of Russia, which, in our opinion, also creates a conflict of interests."

The lawyers of the Central Bank unexpectedly performed bankers; Despite the fact that the current system of banking supervision, most of them are not satisfied with what they directly talked about in their speeches, the proposal to radically reform it to the main mass, do not support it (see graphs). According to the President of the Association of Russian Banks Garegin Tosunyan, "the problems that are formulated today relate not only to and even, perhaps, not so much the central bank as the general regulation system, management of society as a whole." And the chairman of the Council of the Association of Regional Banks, Alexander Murychev, the proposal to deprive the Central Bank of banking supervision commented as follows: "Most bankers against highlighting supervision from the walls of the Central Bank. For one simple reason. Now there is supervision. What is it, this is."

The verdict yesterday was never passed, but there are non -reward prospects before Sergey Ignatiev: the Central Bank can find the werewolf nest, and the intervention of the Prosecutor General’s Office accurately reduces the independence of the Bank of Russia.

Will the participation of the Prosecutor General’s participation increase the qualification of employees of the Central Bank and improve the country's banking system?

Anatoly Aksakov / President of the Association of Regional Banks

Not the case of the prosecutor’s office is to improve the qualifications of employees of the Central Bank! It should be engaged in supervision of compliance with the law. And if the Central Bank violates it, then the prosecutor's office may require its compliance - in this regard, it can improve the work of the Central Bank.

As far as I know, there was a fundamental audit of the activities of the Central Bank, and during it there were no significant comments on the activities of the Central Bank of the General Prosecutor's Office. Of course, there were some separate remarks, but on these issues a common position is now being developed.

And if the Prosecutor General’s office proposed to amend the legislation that would not allow employees of the supervisory unit of the Central Bank to have shares of credit organizations, then perhaps such an initiative should be implemented. So that employees of the supervisory unit does not have a different approach to the activities of various commercial organizations.

It is clear that if they own shares of some organization, they have its insider information and can “merge” it to increase the capitalization of it. Also, in this case, they can be less strictly approaching the activities of a commercial bank.

Artem Tarasov / Entrepreneur

I do not know a single case where the prohibitions would lead to something positive, especially in the economic sphere. On the contrary, it is liberalization that leads to the best results. I have not heard about any such practice in the world so that the banker could not buy shares of other banks or his bank. If it works in the supervisory unit of the Central Bank and has shares of other banks, then if the Prosecutor’s Prosecutor’s Prosecutor’s Prosecutor’s Prosecutor's Prosecutor’s Office, these shares or a friend proposed by the Prosecutor General. Who cares?

I understand that you need to deal with corruption, but this method will bring nothing. And in Russia there is such a form as trust management. Or a person, working in a supervisory authority, will buy stocks, and then just quit from there. Another thing is how to make the supervisor does not affect some banks negatively, and others positively. So that this is not, it is necessary to do his work objective, which will not be based on the personal desire of the official on the supervision of someone to punish someone, and do not touch someone. The prosecutor’s office needs to focus on ensuring that the job descriptions and methods of work are objective and do not lead to opportunities to give someone more. Equal opportunities - only this formula in the world has a positive result.

Alexander Koval / Member of the State Duma Committee on Credit Organizations and Financial Markets

This will simply increase the level of corruption. As soon as we create some other obstacle in order to “not let go”, there will be people who will try to go around everything. In fact, the question is much deeper, because it concerns the law enforcement system.

If courts that make legal and right -wing decisions work in this system, then all issues are resolved. And if any one power department makes a decision not in conjunction with all the others, then there are no prospects. In any decision, the point should always put the court. But as the courts make decisions, everyone knows very well.

Arkady Inin / writer, screenwriter

I will answer the Great phrase of Zhvanetsky: "Whoever protects what is!" The watchman protects apples in the garden - he is also apples and thousands. Or the one who protects the toilets, also endures them. That is, if the Central Bank employees are supervised by those banks whose shares are owned, then they will have from this. It turns out that the Prosecutor General’s Office is 100%.

But I am not sure that its participation can improve the country's banking system.

02/20/2007 / Galina Lyashenko, Alexey Tikhonov, the survey was prepared by Alexander Sargin Material published in the newspaper No. 32 dated 02.21.2007.