Protection of Commercial Credit as a Basis for the State’s Criminal Intervention in Commercial Acts

AbstractCommercial credit is a fundamental pillar of commercial relations and transactions. It plays a central role in generating transactional trust, granting payment terms, conducting credit-based dealings, assuming obligations, and ensuring the continuity of commercial activities. However, where a trader’s conduct undermines such credit, its consequences extend beyond the private relationship between the trader and creditors and affect the credit order of the market as well as the security of commercial transactions. Accordingly, the state, in its capacity as regulator and guarantor of transactional security, cannot remain indifferent to such disruption. Using a descriptive-analytical legal method, this article examines how the state’s criminal intervention in bankruptcy offences may be justified as a means of protecting commercial credit. The findings show that bankruptcy offences should not be analysed merely as offences against property or as instruments for protecting creditors’ individual interests. Rather, the protection of commercial credit may constitute a legitimate basis for the state’s criminal intervention in commercial acts, since, through criminal law in this field, the state protects a form of credit that underpins transactional trust, the security of commercial relations, and the continuity of economic activity in the market.