The dissertation deals with the peculiarities of criminal proceedings against a legal entity. The article deals with the history of the emergence and establishment of the institution of liability of a legal entity for an offense committed by its authorized person, the preconditions for its introduction in Ukraine. It is concluded that the introduction in Ukraine of the institution of liability of legal entities for the crime committed by its authorized person, in contrast to other states, where its appearance is the result of the rapid development of economic relations, the existence of a significant number of legal entities of different organizational and legal form, which actively influenced different spheres social relations, is a consequence of Ukraine's efforts to become a full member of the European community, which required reform of the legislation in the field of combating corruption, laundering of oshey, terrorist financing, opaque financial activities of political parties. The result of such a state policy was the adoption on 23.05.2013 of the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine regarding the implementation of the Action Plan on the Visa Liberalization of the European Union for Ukraine in Respect of the Responsibility of Legal Persons". The place of criminal proceedings regarding a legal entity in the criminal process system is determined, it is noted that it should be included in the special procedures of criminal proceedings.
The attention is paid to the peculiarities of knowledge in this type of proceedings. It is suggested at the theoretical level to distinguish between such a kind of evidence as a "special-derivative" inherent in a criminal proceeding concerning a legal entity. It is special because it differs by the content and range of circumstances to be proved in this type of proceedings, compared with the general, defined in art. 91 CPC of Ukraine. Derivative, since the necessity of establishing the circumstances to be proved in the investigated type of proceedings depends entirely on the presence of specific features of a criminal offense in the actions of an authorized natural person and the absence of grounds for closing criminal proceedings against it.
The circumstances, which are subject to proof in a criminal proceeding concerning a legal entity, are determined, their content and specificity of proof are determined.
The procedural position of the legal entity in respect of which criminal proceedings are conducted, during the pre-trial investigation and trial in the court of first instance is analyzed. The determined time when a legal entity acquires the appropriate procedural status, the content and nature of procedural actions carried out at these stages of legal proceedings are investigated, the grounds, conditions and procedure for the application of criminal-law measures to legal persons are considered. It is noted that many issues that are solved in the trial at first instance have a certain specificity due to the need to solve additional issues within the general criminal procedural form of the task. In particular, they should include: features of the sentence in criminal proceedings against a legal entity; a procedure for determining the type of criminal-law measures that can be applied to a legal entity and their extent; the possibility of entering into criminal proceedings in respect of a legal entity.
The provided recommendations aimed at increasing the effectiveness of legislation in the relevant area of legal relations.
