The issue of economic crimes is one of growing importance in the EU and throughout the developed and developing world. Many crimes involving economic actors are no longer local in nature but easily cross borders and involve multiple participants, including both individuals and countries. For example, money laundering, bribery of foreign officials, tax evasion, antitrust, and securities fraud are offenses taking on a global character, and government efforts to combat them have increased substantially in the last decade.
A key component of any governmental program to prevent economic crimes, especially those that have an international character, involves a heavy reliance on companies and organized markets to police the conduct of those who may engage in wrongdoing. The EU and the United States in particular have put the burden on companies to commit resources to their internal compliance programs to both prevent violations through enhanced training and to detect misconduct, so that when it occurs it is reported quickly to the authorities. There has been a dispute on whether serious economic crimes committed in the transitional period could amount to international crimes.
Grave nature of these offences was recognized in Croatia when the Constitution was amended in order to exclude applicability of limitation periods for so-called war profiteering and crimes committed in the process of ownership transformation and privatization. This was followed by passing the law (2011) on that subject but only one case has been decided by the court so far (pending an appeal). The objective of this part of the research is to analyze impact of economic crimes on global and national economy and to find out the best preventive legal instruments and remedies for crimes that have been committed in period of transition.