In the fierce market competition, grasping business opportunities often means an extra profit opportunity. In recent years, in the new corruption and recessive corruption cases investigated and dealt with in various places, individual leading cadres do not directly accept property, but instead accept or ask for business opportunities from the bribe giver, and then hand over the business opportunities to the designated party or to operate on their own to gain benefits. These specific business opportunities are either not actually operated as a "front" for benefit transmission, or the income is far beyond the normal range, and most of them do not need to bear market risk.
What are the characteristics of this kind of corruption, and how to investigate and deal with such cases? How to accurately identify such corruption from normal business activities? The reporter conducted an interview.
Some ask the trustor to make profits through the so-called "business activities" in order to thank or seek the help of public officials
In the second half of 2021, a real estate development company found Hong Moumou, a member of the Party Leadership Group and deputy director of the Xiaoshan District Government Office in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province at that time, to help coordinate and approve the filing of existing housing sales. Hong introduced Fang XX, a specific related person engaged in real estate sales, to the company, and Fang XX signed a contract with the company in the name of intermediary. After that, Hong XX used his power to help the company successfully complete the filing, and Fang XX collected more than 1.6 million yuan of benefits for Hong XX as agreed in the contract. In the end, Hong was sentenced to four years and six months in prison and fined 400000 yuan for bribery.
"On the surface, it is normal for Fang to be engaged in real estate sales and sign a contract with a real estate company. But the land release coordination meeting, delivery and filing and other matters agreed in the contract cannot be completed by a real estate sales company." The case handler said that from the perspective of transaction necessity, the real estate company involved does not have an objective demand for "third-party intermediaries"; From the perspective of transaction price, it is obviously higher than the normal intermediary fees; From the perspective of transaction risk, Fang does not need to pay costs and provide substantive services as agreed in the contract, but gains no risk.
"Obviously, these unnecessary, zero cost, risk-free 'third-party intermediary' businesses violate the normal laws of market economic activities, and are a means for both parties to accept bribes to conduct power and money transactions through inflated trading links," said the case handler.
"If there is no opportunity, commercial transactions are also necessary to create opportunities." Several interviewed discipline inspection and supervision cadres said that some ask people to make profits through so-called "business activities" in order to thank or seek the help of public officials. Such corruption is in essence to deliver benefits in the name of paying "commercial services".
"This kind of corruption generally adopts a 'detour' strategy, which is planned in advance, tailored, and layered with 'prevention'. It has the characteristics of indirectness, marketability, and concealment, and is a typical new type of corruption and hidden corruption." Hao Yang, director of the Third Review and Investigation Office of the Supervision Commission of Jurong City, Jiangsu Province, said.
Hao Yang analyzed that the "newness" of this new type of corruption is manifested in three aspects: first, the "newness" of bribery means. Both parties involved in bribery carefully designed the transaction process, capital flow and income settlement, embedded profit seeking means into the market transaction process, and concealed the nature of power and money transactions; The second is that the subject form is "new", and the manifestation of corrupt interests is more complex and diverse. It is no longer a real property interest, but a commercial opportunity that can actually benefit after realization; Third, the problems involved are "new", such as project bidding, government purchase of services, mining and other areas with large flow of funds, relatively centralized power, and resource allocation vulnerable to administrative intervention. Problems such as behind the scenes manipulation, business opportunities "brokers" and so on often appear.
The "concealment" is also manifested in three aspects: first, indirect contact and concealment of the main body of corruption. Corruptors move from "in front of the stage" to "behind the scenes", allowing specific stakeholders to undertake relevant projects, transactions, indicators, etc., and accept the transfer of benefits. It is the third person who directly benefits, not the national staff themselves; The second is that the market behavior covers up the benefit transmission, mixes bribery with investment, operation, cooperation and other commercial behaviors, and puts the benefit transmission on the "vest" of marketization, confusing the nature of behavior; The third is to extend the chain to separate the power and money relationship. By providing business opportunities, adding links, adding intermediaries, etc., we deliberately cut the relationship between job identity, profit seeking matters and property receiving behavior in terms of time and objects, lengthen the power and money transaction cycle, hide the power fulfillment relationship, and extend the benefit transmission chain in an attempt to blur the nature of behavior.
"Specific business opportunities, to a certain extent, belong to industry insider information, and tend to generate high market returns with low investment risks." In the view of Hua Shijie, deputy director of the First Discipline Inspection Office of the Yuhang District Commission for Discipline Inspection, Hangzhou, the briber provides business opportunities to specific stakeholders designated by public officials, in fact, he transfers his own interests "conditionally" to public officials, This "condition" is that the public officials have or will provide convenience for them through relevant official acts to realize other interests of the briber.
Find out whether there is any use of public power to seek benefits from hidden business behaviors
"All kinds of business opportunities should be fairly open to unspecified business entities, while some 'business opportunities' are often explicitly targeted at bribe takers and their specific relationships, and benefit transmission through' information gap 'and' influence '." Wang Jian, member of Hangzhou Shangcheng District Supervision Committee, said that there are two or three lines of defense between bribe takers and bribe givers, and power and money transactions are carried out through a third party or even the fourth party, Hard to detect.
The "business opportunity" explored by Zhu Mou, the director of the Certification and Accreditation Supervision and Management Department of the former Quality and Technology Supervision Bureau of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, is to ask for business from the regulatory service objects. In December 2011, Mr. Zhu established a company in the name of others and reached an agreement with Center A that the company should be responsible for undertaking business and collecting calibration fees, and Center A should be responsible for completing business, and both parties should allocate fees in proportion. Later, Zhu claimed equipment calibration business from 9 units under his supervision and handed it over to Center A for implementation and issuance of calibration certificate. He collected more than 740000 yuan of calibration fees and paid more than 310000 yuan to Center A. Zhu earned more than 430000 yuan. Zhu also took the same approach to undertake energy audit, equipment testing, certification consulting, equipment calibration and other businesses through several companies, making a profit of more than one million yuan. Finally, Zhu was sentenced to three years and one month in prison and fined 300000 yuan for bribery.
The company controlled by Mr. Zhu does not have relevant qualifications, technicians or equipment, but only pays a small amount of fees to qualified units to actually complete the above business. The rest of the fees are owned by Mr. Zhu. The relevant responsible comrade of the Hanjiang District Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision of Yangzhou said, "Mr. Zhu almost didn't pay money and manpower costs, but actually used his regulatory authority to claim quantifiable property interests from enterprises."
In the opinion of Chen Chuanwang, the deputy director of the Third Discipline Inspection and Supervision Office of the Jiande Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection, Zhejiang Province, such problems are mainly manifested as follows: to increase the transaction link falsely, ask the trustor to increase the transaction link or create business opportunities without necessity in order to convey benefits, and the bribed party always does not actually put into operation, without risks and high returns; When the business opportunity is resold for realization, the bribed party obtains the business opportunity and directly resells it for profit, or uses the transfer method as the link of benefit transmission, and asks the trustee to pay the transfer price difference; In the transaction of targeted purchase, the trustee is requested to make the briber or its specific related parties obtain additional benefits beyond the normal level of the market through the targeted purchase behavior with obvious directionality and no inquiry.
"In practice, the key to investigating and dealing with such corruption cases is to see the essence through the phenomenon and accurately grasp the essence of the power money transaction." The relevant responsible comrades of the Xiaoshan District Commission for Discipline Inspection in Hangzhou analyzed that, subjectively, to analyze the motives of both sides, normal business opportunities are based on equal transactions, and such issues are the tacit agreement between the two sides to achieve benefit delivery. Objectively, it is necessary to analyze whether the business behavior conforms to the market law, such as whether the business conditions set by the contract terms are "tailored", and whether the price and share are obviously different from the normal level of the market. From the perspective of risk, the transaction risk in such problems is generally borne by the entrusting party, and even a minimum guarantee clause is set up. The profits are all owned by the briber, and the risk is covered by the entrusting party.
Hao Yang told the reporter that it is necessary to find out the matters of asking for help and profits by investigating the risk links of power rent-seeking; Check account transactions and asset anomalies by checking personal assets, bank flow, bulk consumption, etc., trace back to the source and dig deep into the evidence and chain of power realization; By checking the relationship network of key personnel, we can take the overlapping tracks as a breakthrough to lock specific stakeholders; Disclose the starting point and end point of the benefit transmission chain by checking the abnormal business points and directional care chain of related companies.
"To investigate and deal with such cases, we should focus on finding out whether there is the fact of using public power to seek benefits from hidden commercial acts, so as to accurately identify it," Wang Jian said.
Broaden the channels for finding problem clues and strengthen the supervision mechanism of power operation
How to correct such corruption? Wang Jian believes that first, we should pay attention to big data empowerment, dig problem clues through digital early warning, and figure out possible risks and hidden dangers; Second, we should do a good job in promoting reform and governance through cases, implement the power operation supervision mechanism, and prevent problems before they occur; Third, we should strengthen the warning education of typical cases, warn Party members and cadres not to violate the red line of discipline and law, and stick to the bottom line of integrity.
Broaden the channels for finding problem clues. Jurong Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision Committee used big data and other means to analyze and compare, collect the information of party leaders and cadres, key positions and their relatives who run businesses, build a comparison model, find clues, lock problem clues, and use data relevance to monitor and evaluate corrupt transactions. Hangzhou Xiaoshan District Commission for Discipline Inspection has carried out special rectification against corruption and style problems in engineering construction and real estate, and established a mechanism for notification, clue transfer and joint inspection with relevant functional departments such as housing construction and transportation, so as to achieve "one game of chess".
Strengthen the supervision mechanism of power operation. The Commission for Discipline Inspection of Yuhang District, Hangzhou urged relevant departments to strengthen the implementation of the reporting system for personal related matters, strengthen the spot check and verification of the authenticity of investment and financial matters, and prevent "one report". In the process of case investigation, abnormal situations in the transaction are found in time through big data supervision. Jurong Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection Supervision strengthened the supervision over the implementation of democratic centralism by the "top leaders" and the leadership, and the performance of their duties and rights in accordance with the rules and disciplines, explored the establishment of systems such as recording the intervention of leading cadres in major matters, focused on strengthening the supervision over the correct exercise of power by leading cadres, and urged the implementation of the provisions on the management of leading cadres' spouses, children and their spouses running businesses, Strictly set up the prohibited and restrictive negative list of business enterprises run by "people around" leading cadres, regularly check the implementation of the system, and timely find and correct problems.
In response to the problems exposed in the investigation and handling of a series of cases in the field of state-owned enterprises, the Hai'an Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision of Jiangsu Province promoted the investigation and handling of 67 problems in related enterprises, issued personnel management measures and staff accountability measures, and formulated 3 rules of procedure and 25 project management systems. The Xiaoshan District Commission for Discipline Inspection of Hangzhou City comprehensively analyzed key cases in the field of engineering construction and real estate, issued disciplinary inspection proposals to the District Housing and Urban Rural Development Bureau and other departments, and promoted the establishment and improvement of 16 long-term supervision mechanisms such as project approval, bidding agency credit management, etc. Under the supervision and promotion, the District Housing and Urban Rural Development Bureau also uses big data to capture and share the approval information of relevant functional departments involved in the engineering construction field, and further strengthen the supervision of the approval process.
Strengthen warning education. In combination with the typical cases investigated and dealt with in recent years, the Commission for Discipline Inspection of Yuhang District and Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou continued to strengthen warning education by organizing auditions, making special warning films, sorting out and printing relevant warning records, adhering to the "disease free" early prevention, and guiding party members, cadres and public officials to be in awe, be on guard against fear, and keep the bottom line. (Reporter Guan Xiaopu)
