Business dishonesty

Since I touched on the crime of dishonesty in my last article.
It is appropriate that I devote this article to this crime.
I begin by explaining the importance of honesty in the Islamic Shari’ah and its utmost care for it, through many verses of the Holy Qur’an, including the saying of God Almighty:
(“Allah commands you to pay trusts to their rightful owners” and through countless traditions of the Prophet of Mercy, peace be upon him, including what was narrated by al-Tirmidhi and others: “Pay the trust to the one who owns it, and do not betray the one who betrays you.
And do not betray those who betray you.
Therefore, the criminalization of breach of trust by the ruler is of great importance for fear of interrupting the benefits and interests of society as a result of the loss of trust between people and the spread of financial corruption among them, which results in people locking up their money for fear of losing it.
This then leads to the loss of job opportunities and increased unemployment due to the lack of honesty or its weakness.
This leads to the lack of transactions between people, the spread of depression, the interruption of favors, and the spread of hatred between members of society.

In simple terms, breach of trust means that a person disposes of money or other property that does not belong to him or her and has been entrusted to him or her.
In other words, a person disposes of money or other property that is already in his possession and that he has not stolen or fraudulently obtained.
It was given to him freely by the owner of the money.

In the Saudi system, breach of trust is not directly defined or described in the Saudi criminal laws, but there are several penalties for it in the Kingdom’s Commercial Court Law issued in 1350 AH.
However, several penalties were mentioned in the Kingdom’s Commercial Court Law issued in 1350 AH, where the Commercial Court Law specified cases that fall under the crime of breach of trust.
Article (5) stipulates that every merchant must conduct all his commercial activities in a manner characterized by religion and honor, so that he does not commit fraud, fraud, fraud, deceit, deceit, deceit, or anything that violates religion and honor in any way, and if he does so, he deserves the deterrent penalty in accordance with the graduated penal code in this system, and if he does so, he deserves the deterrent penalty under the law.
The deterrent penalty is stipulated in Article (147) of the Commercial Court System, which is imprisonment from ten days to three months or a fine, including the text of Article (138) Every merchant who sells something of his money or his client’s money under his control in a valid manner and then gives the buyer a deed of annulment by receiving it from the Then he jokes about his sale and opposes the delivery of the sale, even in the form of collusion with the storekeeper to increase the price of the sale or other dishonest reasons, that merchant and the storekeeper shall be deemed to have colluded and abused the trust and commercial honor and shall deserve imprisonment with the colluding storekeeper from one to three months.
Article (148) stipulates that
If any subterfuge or treachery is proven by a land or sea transportation trustee, a selling trustee or a custodian in destroying or losing the goods entrusted to him in addition to the guarantee, he shall be punished by imprisonment from one month to six months.

By extrapolating and analyzing the contents of the aforementioned articles with the rest of the articles of Chapter Eleven of Part One of the Commercial Court Law, without prolonging the article by mentioning their texts, a proposed definition of breach of trust in the Saudi system can be reached as the abuse of trust, whether by collusion, fraud, embezzlement, forgery, corruption, fraud or deceit to waste, destroy, spoil or seize things belonging to others who handed them over to the breacher as a deposit, lease, use or pawn to direct them for a specific purpose for their benefit or the benefit of others.
Accordingly, breach of trust is not limited to cash only.
It extends to all movables, whether they are goods, materials, or others.
It is also not limited to those who receive these items without capacity.
It also includes the agent if he violates the limits of what was entrusted to him regarding this trust.

A questioner may ask:
What is the legal basis for criminalizing breach of trust in the Saudi system?
We say that the legal rule says that there is no crime and no punishment without a statute.
According to the extrapolation of the Saudi systems, it appears to every specialist that the crime of breach of trust has not been prohibited in an independent system, as is the case in Arab and Gulf laws, which have dedicated a separate chapter or chapter to it in their penal codes, for example, but not limited to:
The Egyptian Penal Code devotes Chapter 10 to fraud and breach of trust and includes ten articles describing cases of breach of trust, while the Qatari Penal Code stipulates it in Chapter 3 entitled Breach of Trust, and this chapter falls under Chapter 3 entitled Crimes against Property.
However, some of its forms are criminalized in some Saudi regulations.
This has led to confusion in defining its provisions and defining the parameters of the acts that fall under it.
This makes it imperative for the Saudi regulator to expedite the enactment of a special statute for this crime, similar to what he did for bribery, forgery and other criminal offenses.
In order for its disparate forms to be collected in a specific system and a specific judicial destination.
With regard to the lack of a clear definition of breach of trust in the Saudi system.
I would like to point out that the definitions of the law commentators revolve around the same orbit and are based on the definitions of the Egyptian Court of Cassation, whose definitions and reasoning are considered legal rules required for state courts and their judges.
Therefore, it can be said that breach of trust, as defined by the Egyptian Court of Cassation, is the seizure by a person of movable property in his possession based on a contract specified by law.
by betraying the trust placed in him under this contract.
By changing his status from a holder on behalf of the owner to a claimant of ownership.

According to this definition, movable property owned by partners in a business is subject to breach of trust, as the partner acts as an agent and the crime of breach of trust is committed by him even if he is a partner in the property.
This is what the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled, where it said:
A partner who embezzles some of the company’s money delivered to him in his capacity to use it in its affairs shall be punished for breach of trust.
Because his receipt of the company’s money in this case is considered under the law to be in his capacity as an agent for his companies.
Agency was one of the fiduciary contracts mentioned in article 341 of the Penal Code