Corruption, parallel accounts, and irregular financing of political parties. These are some of the topics covered in ‘Crime e Política’ [Crime and Politics], compiled by Alaor Leite and Adriano Teixeira. From a criminal law standpoint, the new publication from FGV Press brings up some of the key issues in the fight against corruption, such as campaign financing, parallel accounts, illicit enrichment, and recovery of assets.

When is an electoral donation a bribe? What is the relationship between corruption and parallel accounts? Are there specific features to the crime of corruption when the employee is a political agent? Can a congressman’s vote on a bill of interest to a campaign donor be an act of corruption? These and other questions are addressed in depth in the pages of ‘Crime e Política’.

Through a comparative analysis of German, Brazilian, Spanish, and Portuguese authors, the work extends the knowledge of the repertoire of legal tools and institutional attitudes designed to fight illegal and abusive practices. This new scenario unveiled by Operation Car Wash in Brazil, dug up the perverted relationship between the public/state-owned and the private sectors, another issue covered by the book.

The work also points out the lack of consistency in the proposals for legal and institutional reforms. In the view of experts, the reforms are able to ensure a greater efficiency of the penal system, transparency and control of campaign financing, bidding procedures, and the inner workings of the state’s regulation of economic activity.

Finally, based on foreign experiences, the authors also address the penal and tax aspects of corruption, the autonomous criminalization of illicit enrichment and the irregular funding of election campaigns, among other topics. ‘Crime e Política’ is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the current Brazilian political scenario.

Go to the website for more information, in Portuguese, on the book.