The offence of fraud in comparative legislation

The article is devoted to the research in the sphere of responsibility for the crime of fraud and comparative analysis of analogous provisions of several countries. The author analyzes theoretical views and norms which regulate that offence in the criminal law of Great Britain, USA, France, Germany, Spain and Netherlands. The conducted study indicates that considerable attention is paid to the committing of criminal offense, which is why the Anglo-American law is directed to analyzing several legal concepts that characterize fraud. Except the current legislation, it has been analyzed the term of fraud from the criminal and civil law aspect, as well as archival material containing for the first time the concept of "false representation". The other analyzed legislations place more emphasis on the circumstances under which the crime was committed, taking into account the social position, age and health status of the victim, as well as the characteristics of the property that is subject of the criminal offense. While Great Britain has devoted a general concept of fraud to a particular statute, the countries of the Euro-Continental legal system regulate fraud in the criminal code, which, except to the basic concept, also regulate special form of fraud as separate crimes.