NEGOTIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES PROHIBITED TO OFFICIALS

Arts. 439 to 444 of the Penal Code regulate negotiations and activities prohibited to public officials and abuses in the exercise of their functions. Specifically, the following conducts are punishable:

1. In the first place, Article 439 of the Criminal Code punishes the authority or official who, having to intervene by reason of his position in any kind of contract or activity, takes advantage of it to force or facilitate any participation in such business or actions.
2. Secondly, Article 440 of the Penal Code punishes experts, arbitrators and accountants who engage in the behavior described above with respect to the goods or things in whose appraisal, partition or adjudication they have intervened. This precept is also applicable to guardians, curators or executors with respect to assets belonging to their wards or wills, as well as to insolvency administrators with respect to assets and rights included in the insolvency estate.
3. For its part, Article 441 of the Penal Code punishes the authority or public official who, outside the legally permitted cases, performs a professional activity under the dependence or at the service of private entities or individuals, in a matter in which he must intervene or has intervened by reason of his position.
4. It is also punishable to an authority or public official who uses a secret of which he has had knowledge by reason of his position or privileged information, with the intention of obtaining an economic benefit (art. 442 of the Penal Code).

Finally, Article 443 of the Criminal Code provides that an authority or official who sexually solicits a person who has claims pending before such official or authority or on which the latter is required to report or consult with his or her superior. Likewise, any official of any detention or custody center who sexually solicits a person in his custody is sanctioned.