Responsibility for Illegal Use of Trademarks: International and Interstate Aspects

A trademark is a widespread means of product individualization, which allows you to draw attention to the product, its manufacturer, or the seller. In fact, Goods, works, service individualization tools in the Russian Federation are the outcome of mental activity. Trademark registration makes it possible to form an easily recognizable brand and use it in order to sell it successfully among similar products. A manufacturer, promoting his product on the market, spends money on advertising, and increases the attractiveness of his products. Unscrupulous entrepreneurs are very tempted to produce goods using a famous brand, without corresponding costs, and without keeping a high quality of his goods. This article discusses the international and domestic aspects of accountability for the illegal usage of a trademark and provides recommendations for R.F. criminal law improvement. Moreover, Several investigation methods are utilized in the survey, including statistical, systematic and structural, historical and legal, formal and logical, specific sociological, as well as comparative law

Responsibility for legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime in international statutory instruments and legislation of the russian federation

Legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime is an offence of international nature. In view of globalization of the world economic processes, penetration of criminal money into the legal economy of one state adversely affects the financial stability of all countries, which requires them to collaborate in combating this type of criminal activities. This article deals with the regulation of responsibility for laundering proceeds from crime on the international level and on the level of criminal legislation of Russia, including the influence of international statutory instruments on the domestic legislation of the Russian Federation

Fraud in Russia: History and present

The article deals with fraud as the corpus delicti under the current criminal legislation of Russia, as well as the stages of this type of criminal activity development during the Soviet and pre-Soviet period. The study the ways of fraud commitment such as deception and the breach of trust. The opinions of various authors on deception content and form are assessed critically. The varieties of modern fraudulent acts in Russia and in foreign countries are analyzed. They describe the most well-known cases of fraud in our own and other countries as an example. Fraud includes necessarily not only the moment of deception, but also the element of confidence. This dual essence of fraud is clearly manifested in the establishment and the activities of various financial companies. According to the RF Federal Law No 78-FL issued on March 30, 2016 the Russian Federation Criminal Code was amended by the article 1722 "Organization of activities for the raise of funds and (or) other property", which provides the criminal liability for the organization of financial pyramid activities. In order to improve the measures of fraud fighting it is proposed to create a public authority, which will be focused on fraud counteraction, including the one performed by organized groups, criminal association (criminal organization)of a transnational or an interregional type

Responsibility for counterfeiting according to the legislation of the Russian Federation

© Medwell Journals, 2015. In the study, the components of the crimes relating to money, securities and payment cards counterfeiting are analyzed. In the Russian Federation production, keeping, transfer for purposes of sale and sales of counterfeit money or securities are punishable (Art. 186 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation hereinafter CC RF) and production or sales of counterfeit credit or pay cards and other payment instruments (Art. 187 CC RF) are punishable. The disputable points of classification and criminal prosecution for commitment of crimes provided for by the Articles 186 and 187 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are specified. In Russia criminal responsibility for counterfeiting is incurred only in case of counterfeiting of bank notes and metal coins for the purposes of sale, i.e., to be used as an instrument of payment or other disposition at that the number of the counterfeit money and their value do not matter. At the same time, counterfeiting of pay cards with no intent of disposition but for the purpose of use as a payment instrument involves incurrence of responsibility for fraud with the use of pay cards (Art. 1593 CC RF). The international anti-counterfeiting acts are reviewed (International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency of April 20, 1929). It is found out that the local criminal law of Russia complies with the international regulations in this area

Ecotoxicological assessment of soil using the Bacillus pumilus contact test

We estimated the toxicity of soils artificially contaminated with metals and a pesticide using the Bacillus pumilus dehydrogenase activity (DHase) inhibition test. We found a masking effect of organic matter while testing the toxicity of soil samples with low content of toxicants. To avoid this effect, uncontaminated soil should be used as a control; in its absence, we recommend using a " substitute" control. We developed a method to estimate the " substitute" control by multiplying the quotient (So), which depends on organic matter content (Corg) of the soil sample, by the activity of the test culture determined in the presence of water (Arelw). This method does not require uncontaminated soil controls and can be extended to use with other test organisms that are sensitive to Corg. © 2010

The use of bioassays for evaluating the toxicity of sewage sludge and sewage sludge-amended soil

Background and Aims. In soils, the most commonly mentioned hazardous substances are metals. One of the sources of its accumulation is the application of sewage sludge. However, little information is available regarding the estimation of the toxicity of sewage sludge or soil treated with sewage sludge, even by means of a battery of bioassays. In this study an evaluation of a battery of bioassays was carried out for toxicity assessment of sewage sludge and sewage sludge-treated soil. The objectives of this study were a) to compare the sensitivity of the different bioassays for the toxicity determination of sewage sludge contaminated with metals and soil treated with this sewage sludge, b) to elaborate a procedure for the attribution of sewage sludge samples to hazard classes based on the ecotoxicological data, and c) to evaluate the suitability of elutriate bioassays and microbial toxicity tests for the assessment of sewage sludge-treated soil. Methods. Experiments were carried out on grey forest soil (Haplic Greyzem) treated with existent sewage sludge obtained from the Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant of the city of Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia. Portions of sludge were preliminary spiked by adding water-soluble chlorides or nitrates containing the following metals/metalloids: As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn. The test battery included four organisms -bacterium Pseudomonas putida, protozoan Paramecium caudatum, water flea Daphnia magna and higher plant Raphanus sativus. In addition, the toxicity of the soils treated with sludge was measured using microbial bioassays based on the estimation of microbial respiration, microbial biomass, N2-fixation activity and calculation of the metabolic quotient. Results and Discussion. The comparison of the toxicity values (expressed as the lowest dilution factor which exhibits 10% inhibition of an estimated parameter) of three model samples of sewage sludge prepared by us showed different sensitivities for all test organisms. The most sensitive was observed in the Daphnia test, while a similar sensitivity was noted for the Paramecium test. The other two tests proved to be less sensitive to the components of the sludge. The analysis of the soils treated with the sewage sludge samples, using the previously mentioned tests, showed that all metal-contaminated sludge treatments as well as the control soil were not significantly inhibitory to all elutriate tests except for that with Daphnia. The microbial toxicity studies including estimation of the microbial biomass C, respiration and N2-fixating activity appear to be more sensitive than the elutriate tests for toxicity in the case of soil treated with metal-contaminated sewage sludge. Conclusion. An integrated cotoxicological approach to classify the sewage sludge into hazard classes is proposed based on toxicological analyses. The test battery including four bioassays is elaborated to establish the toxicity status of the sewage sludge. The proposed procedure is easy to apply, cost effective and relatively fast. The application of microbial toxicity tests can be very useful for risk assessment in the case of soil treated with metal-contaminated sewage sludge. Recommendation and Outlook. The application of the bioassays appears to be very promising mainly for the risk identification of highly contaminated matrices with hardly identified composition such as sewage sludge or soil-associated contaminants. However, the future success in elaborating reliable toxicity tests can be achieved only by the progress in standardizing, national legislators and efforts of researchers

Restoration of soil quality after oil pollution

© 2014, SGEM. All Rights Reserved. In this study, the self-restoration and remediation of oily polluted soil was investigated, Microbial parameters were used as indicators of the processes. The amount of oil that was used for artificial contamination of soil was 20 g kg-1. We analyzed total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) content and dynamics of microbial activities in polluted soil, polluted dugged-up soil, control soil in the layers 0-20, 20-40, 40-60 cm after 3 and 36 months after pollution. It was shown that oil mainly remains in the upper layer and does not migrate significantly along soil profile. The digging-up permitted the intensify the natural process of oil destruction (up to 42%). Changes in TPH content influenced the concentrations of organic carbon in the soil - they increased in 3.3-3.9 times in the upper layer of soil after 3 months since contamination in comparison to control. The level of microbial biomass in the control samples ranged from 172 to 201 mg Cmic g-1in the upper soil layers, and decreased with depth. The maximum level of this parameter (807 mg Cmic g-1) was observed in the upper layer of non-digged polluted soil after 3 months of contamination. Soil respiration activity values ranged from 94 to 100 mg CO2-C g-124h-1. The positive correlation (R=0.86) between basal respiration and microbial biomass was found in control samples but not in polluted samples. Oil pollution did not influence significantly the cellulase activity of the soil which was more determined by depth but not TPH concentration or presence/absence of pollution. In opposite, urease activity was highly dependent on oil pollution - in all polluted samples it was 3-383 times lower than in the corresponding control

Bioremediation of oil waste under field experiment

The remediation process of oily waste, selected in the tank battery, was conducted under field experiment. Compost (5 and 50%), prepared from the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, sewage sludge and sawdust, as well as two strains of soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis RG2 and Bacillus pumilus RG1 were used for remediation process. The lowest amount of petroleum hydrocarbons was detected when mixing waste with soil and compost at the amount of 50%. In the first case noted effect was achieved by increasing the number of hydrocarbon oxidizing bacteria, whereas in the second case it was attained by increasing the total microbial biomass and metabolic activity of the mixtures. Adding microorganisms-destructors did not have a significant effect on the hydrocarbon decomposition process. Taking into account the relevancy for soil resources preservation, the use of compost for bioremediation seems to be the most promising technique. © IDOSI Publications, 2014

Economic crimes related to oil production, transport and refining

In article crimes in the sphere of economic activity for which object are the public relations in the sphere of production, transportations and oil refining are analyzed. Some features of economic crime in the oil sphere are revealed, and also the offers directed on fight against economic crimes related to oil production, transport and refining become. Illegal business takes place in case of implementation of business activity in the sphere of production, transportation and oil refining without registration or without license on condition of commercialization in a large size or causing large damage. One of the distinctive features of the crimes related to oil production, transportation and refining is that these are criminally organised. The desire of excess profit forces the oil market players to combine their efforts and organise criminal groups and conspiracies. These criminal groups may include state authority. Fight against economic crimes related to oil production, transport and refining demands creation of a complex legal, including addition of the criminal legislation with special corpus delicti, which subject are the oil and oil products which aren't conforming to the established requirements, and organizational measures

Effects of leakage of compounds from radioactive oily waste on soil microbial community

The study deals with the effects of disposal of oily waste containing natural radionuclides on chemical and biological properties of different soil layers. Two wastes were used in a laboratory experiment: raw oily waste H (TPH - 575±121 g kg-1,226Ra - 4403±312,232Th - 2848±211, 40K - 1276±133 Bq kg-1) from a production yard, and treated waste R obtained by eluting oily components from waste H. The wastes were disposed on soil columns (H-and R-columns), at the amount equalized by the concentration of radionuclides. C-columns without waste disposed were used as a control. After 30 days of irrigation, soil properties of layers 0-20,20-40 and 40-60cm were estimated. TPH content in all the layers of H-columns was significantly higher than in C- and R-columns. Activity concentrations of 226Ra and 232Th in R0-20 samples were 3.5 times higher than in control samples. Soil microbial biomass decreased from the upper to the lower layer in all the columns. Significant reduction of microbial biomass in the upper layer of column H was observed in comparison with columns C and R (12, 26 and 22 mg Cmic kg-1 correspondingly). Respiration activity in samples H0-20 was 2.4 and 1.5 times higher in comparison to C0-20 and Rn.20 samples. Hydrocarbon oxidizing bacterial counts was significantly higher in all the samples of H-column, whereas there were no differences in total bacteria counts. On the basis of cluster analysis of the data obtained, it was concluded that namely the oily compounds cause the alteration in microbial communities, especially in the upper layer of soil. The effect of radionuclides on soil microbiota was not observed