Home » Mr. Thomas Firestone, Representative of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Justice of the United States of America

And for us now is a very important point, because in contrast to the Russian law, U.S. law provides for criminal liability of legal persons. Therefore, a legal entity - a large company that purchases of wood products, can be held criminally responsible under the law of the forest for the fact that the goods it buys, illicit origin. This issue is very important, because, as you know, for a legal entity (for companies) goodwill - that's all. And criminal charges - this is like the death penalty for companies. Therefore, all our companies are very concerned about this law and take very serious measures in order to comply with all requirements of the law of the forest. Here, in this respect there is the question: under what conditions, in what situations will be subject to criminal responsibility of the buyer of illegal timber origin? In our law, they may be criminally liable if they knew that the timber of illegal origin (this is understandable), or if they should have known that the product of illicit origin. What does this mean - should have known? How does it identify? To determine this, we used the law in such legal language: the buyer should take ... This is what in English is called "do care", but in Russian it is translated, as due diligence. He must take reasonable steps to make sure that what he buys, the legal origin.