Debatable questions of bringing to civil liability of persons guilty of bank secrecy disclosure: analysis of theory and practice

Introduction: modern Russian legislation for the disclosure of bank secrecy provides for various types of liability, including civil liability. However, the lack of legal definitions of “privacy” in terms of the presence of a conflict between normative acts, the special acts in the sphere of the authorized disclosure of confidential information, allow the persons who obtained illegal access to confidential bank information, to avoid responsibility. Purpose: to reveal the legal concept of “disclosure of secrets”, to identify areas of the theory of law and law enforcement, in which there are contradictions on the issues of bringing to civil liability of persons who have received unlawful access to secret banking information; to propose legal ways to overcome them. Results: the author proposes the interpretation of the concept of “disclosure of secrets”, identifies qualifying criteria for illegal disclosure in relation to the regime of bank secrecy, makes legislative proposals to develop a common position of Russian law enforcement on the legality of access of individuals to confidential banking information of customers. Conclusions: in order to overcome the contradictions in determining the range of persons who have the right to get acquainted with banking information and eliminate discrepancies in the interpretation of access rules, the author proposes to establish a single rule at the legislative level, according to which banking information can be provided in addition to the will of the customer of the credit institution and without its consent only to those bodies and in cases provided for by a special regulatory act - the Federal law “About banks and banking activities”.