Protected legal interest in private corruption felony in Colombia. Systematic analysis and connections with the unfair competition law

Abstract

Corruption has revealed as a big problem in Latin-American and Colombian modern societies. This problem must be solved using several tools from corporation governance, public and private law. Since 1990's international entities and states have made rules to fight against private corruption. All of them advised to prosecute these reprehensible behaviors as a felony. In Colombia, a criminal law reform created corruption in the companies as a felony in 2011. This rule protects not only private interests of companies but also a public interest in the preservation of freedom in the market as well as rules governing unfair competition law.

La corrupción es un problema importante para las sociedades contemporáneas latinoamericanas y particularmente colombiana. Este problema debe solucionarse desde distintas perspectivas y utilizando instrumentos en los ámbitos de la gobernanza empresarial, el derecho publico y el derecho privado. Desde los años noventa, organismos internacionales han creado reglas para combatir la corrupción privada, en las que recomiendan perseguir estos comportamientos a través de la vía penal. En Colombia, una reforma del Código Penal creó el delito de corrupción privada en 2011, que protege no sólo los intereses privados de las empresas, sino también intereses públicos en la preservación de la libertad de mercado.