Fraud (Austria and Liechtenstein)

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In the criminal law of Austria and Liechtenstein, fraud refers to a property offense in which the perpetrator deliberately deceives the victim by pretending or suppressing facts, with the intent of unlawful enrichment, so that he damages himself or a third party to the property and thus causes material damage .

The fraudulent criminal offenses belong to the group of property offenses and are regulated in the Austrian and Liechtenstein Criminal Code in § 146 ff. StGB.

Amounted to

The basic offense of fraud can be found in § 146 StGB and reads word for word in Austria and Liechtenstein:

"Anyone who intends to unlawfully enrich himself or a third party through the conduct of the deceived person, by deceiving someone about facts, induces an act, toleration or omission that damages this or someone else's property, is punishable by imprisonment of up to six months or to punish with a fine of up to 360 daily rates. "

The offense standardizes the deception of facts as an act and the damage to the property of the victim or a third party as the result of the offense. Fraud is an intentional offense and requires double intent in order to be punishable by law. On the one hand, there is an intentional act aimed at the realization of the external factual side and an additional intent in the direction of unlawful enrichment, which the practice collectively calls intent to deceive, damage and enrichment, whereby conditional intent (dolus eventualis) is sufficient.

Serious fraud

In § 147 StGB the straferhöhende qualification of fraud is regulated. The threat of punishment increases to up to three years imprisonment, if one is completing the fraud

  • false or falsified documents, falsified, falsified or alienated non-cash means of payment, false or falsified data, other such evidence or an incorrect measuring device are used;
  • falsely pretending to be an official.

Since January 1st, 2010 doping fraud is also a criminal offense. Section 147 (1a) of the Criminal Code refers to the 3-year penalty in Section 147 and reads as follows: (1a) Anyone who commits fraud with more than minor damage by using a prohibited substance or a prohibited substance must also be punished Method according to the annex of the Anti-Doping Convention, Federal Law Gazette No. 451/1991, for the purposes of doping in sport is deceiving.

The same penalty increase also applies if the fraud results in damage in excess of 5,000 euros. If the damage exceeds 300,000 euros (in Liechtenstein: “particularly large damage”), the threat of punishment increases to a prison sentence of up to ten years.

Commercial fraud

If the fraud is committed on a commercial basis, the sentence increases to up to three years imprisonment under Section 148 of the Criminal Code. In terms of business, one acts according to the Criminal Code if one commits the fraud with the intention of gaining a steady income through the repeated inspection.

If serious fraud is committed in accordance with Section 147 (1) to (2) with this commercial intent, the threat of punishment increases to from six months to five years imprisonment.

Emergency fraud

Emergency fraud is regulated in § 150 StGB and represents a fraud privilege according to § 146 StGB. Anyone who commits fraud according to § 146 StGB is punished with a lower penalty of up to one month's imprisonment or 60 daily fines.

The prerequisite for this privilege is that the fraud was committed out of necessity, caused only minor damage and does not constitute serious or commercial fraud ( § 147 or § 148 StGB). In addition, emergency fraud is an authorization offense , so that the perpetrator can only be prosecuted if the victim has been authorized.

If the act is committed against the spouse, relative in a straight line, brother or sister or other relatives with whom he lives in the same household, the perpetrator is not to be punished at all.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Fraud  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wikiquote: Fraud  Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guiding principle legal information system RIS-Justiz RS0119624, leading decision OGH of January 13, 2005, 15 Os 145/04