Section 152: Official's conflict of interest in an undertaking
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดเป็นเจ้าพนักงาน มีหน้าที่จัดการหรือดูแลกิจการใด เข้ามีส่วนได้เสียเพื่อประโยชน์สำหรับตนเองหรือผู้อื่น เนื่องด้วยกิจการนั้น ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่หนึ่งปีถึงสิบปี และปรับตั้งแต่สองหมื่นบาทถึงสองแสนบาท หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๗ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever, being an official having the duty to manage or supervise any undertaking, acquires an interest for the benefit of himself or another in connection with that undertaking, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to ten years and a fine from twenty thousand to two hundred thousand baht.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 152 is the conflict-of-interest offence within the Malfeasance in Office chapter. Its elements are (1) being an official (2) with the duty to manage or supervise an undertaking, and (3) acquiring an interest, for the benefit of oneself or another, in connection with that undertaking. The benefit need not flow to the official personally; an interest secured for a related person, such as a spouse, is enough. The offence is complete when the official, while charged with overseeing the undertaking, becomes interested in it; there is no requirement that the State suffer a quantified loss, which separates this section from the loss-based offences in Sections 147 and 151. Its penalty range is lighter than the core corruption offences, without a life-imprisonment ceiling.
Why this matters in practice
Exposure is one to ten years plus a fine; the offence is non-compoundable and prosecuted by the State. The core question is whether the official's supervisory duty over the undertaking overlapped with a personal or family interest in it; that overlap, not proof of financial loss, is what the prosecution must establish. Officials who oversee projects touching land, contracts or businesses connected to relatives are exposed even where the deal looks routine. Because the ten-year maximum places the limitation period at fifteen years, historic dealings can still be pursued. For businesses dealing with public projects, corporate criminal liability in Thailand is a related concern.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 8823/2559 (2016)
Where an official has the duty to supervise a project and the project benefits property belonging to his spouse, he is regarded as having acquired an interest in connection with that undertaking and is guilty under Section 152; the interest need not benefit the official personally.
The defendant, a provincial agriculture official, supervised a project that brought disease-free citrus seedlings onto land owned by his wife, which benefited that land. The Supreme Court held this amounted to acquiring an interest for the benefit of his spouse in connection with the undertaking, an offence under Section 152.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 17 Supreme Court decisions (1961 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 218/2567 (2024)
- Decision 2659/2565 (2022)
- Decision 8823/2559 (2016)
- Decision 7776/2540 (1997)
- Decision 1706/2535 (1992)
- Decision 2040/2523 (1980)
- Decision 1076/2522 (1979)
- Decision 4076/2534 (1991)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 91 12
- Section 157 11
- Section 83 9
- Section 90 6
- Section 78 5
- Section 162 5
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
Does the benefit have to go to the official personally?
No. An interest secured for another person, including a spouse or relative, in connection with the undertaking is enough under Section 152.
Must the State suffer a loss for Section 152 to apply?
No. Unlike Sections 147 and 151, this offence is complete when the supervising official becomes interested in the undertaking, without proof of quantified loss.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 152 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 152. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-152/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 152 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-152/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-152/"><p>Whoever, being an official having the duty to manage or supervise any undertaking, acquires an interest for the benefit of himself or another in connection with that undertaking, shall be punished with imprisonment from one to ten years and a fine from twenty thousand to…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 152 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-152/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.