This paper studies the criminal liability of legal persons, which has suffered a deep reform with the organic law 1/2015, after being introduced in Spain in 2010. This reform has brought important modifications and news, as the creation of an exemption of liability through the adoption of compliance programs, which supposes a change in the so called model of transfer of liability, that existed before. Parallel to this transformation in the Spanish criminal code, in Peru recently the law 30424 has come into forth, which contents a corporate liability model, very similar to the one foreseen in Spain. Both models of liability and the possibility of its exemption raise doubts about if they really tried to penalize legal persons or not. / El presente trabajo estudia la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas en España, la cual, después de haberse introducido en el año 2010, ha sufrido una reforma de hondo calado con la ley orgánica 1/2015. Esta ha conllevado importantes modificaciones y novedades, como la creación de una eximente de responsabilidad mediante la adopción de programas de cumplimiento, que ha supuesto un cambio en el antes existente modelo de transferencia de responsabilidad. Paralelamente a esta transformación que ha tenido lugar en el Código Penal español, en el Perú recientemente se ha aprobado la ley 30424, que crea un modelo de responsabilidad para las personas jurídicas muy similar al previsto en España. Ambos modelos de responsabilidad y la posibilidad de su exención plantean la duda de si realmente se pretende responsabilizar penalmente a las personas jurídicas o no.

LL.M. (International Law) / Please refer to full text to view abstract.

Depuis toujours, l’homme agit sur le milieu naturel pour développer son cadre de vie. Ce comportement peut avoir des effets néfastes sur l’environnement, de sorte que l’idée de le protéger a progressivement émergé dans la conscience collective. Le législateur français a ainsi développé un important arsenal législatif parmi lequel figurent des dispositions d’ordre pénal ayant vocation à sanctionner les auteurs d’atteintes à l’environnement. Mais le dispositif pénal, bien que nécessaire, ne doit pas être l’unique réponse aux atteintes à l’environnement. Il doit s’articuler avec d’autres mécanismes, tels que la responsabilité civile, et ce afin de permettre notamment la réparation du préjudice écologique. Le droit pénal de l’environnement tel qu’il est aujourd’hui mis en œuvre n’est pas satisfaisant. Il souffre d’imperfections qui affectent son efficacité. Les présents travaux tentent de remédier à cette situation. / Traditionally, the human being has acted on nature to develop its living environment. This behaviour can have bad effects on the environment, so that the idea of protecting it gradually came into the collective consciousness. The French legislature thus developed an important arsenal of laws among which we can find penal provisions made to sanction those who damage environment. But the penal system, while necessary, should not be the only answer to the environment attacks. It must be linked with other mechanisms, such as civil liability, and that in order to allow, among others, the repair of the ecological damage. Criminal law for the environment as it is implemented today is not satisfactory. It suffers from flaws that affect its efficiency. The present works try to find a remedy for this situation.

This issue focuses on the sanctioning of corporate crime. The reason and background for this is a planned change in the law in Germany, which could have an impact on companies worldwide, if they engage in commercial activities in Germany.

In summer 2019 the German Federal Ministry of Justice has unveiled a draft Corporate Sanctioning Act (Verbandssanktionengesetz) to combat corporate crime. In this article, the author comments on the intended changes and highlights some issues that could be better solved differently in practice.

In August 2019, the Federal Ministry of Justice submitted a draft for a corporate crime act. This draft will end a decade-long debate on the criminal liability of legal persons and profoundly change the criminal prosecution in the area of economic criminal law. The article classifies the legislative project in the current discourse on criminal policy, reports on the content of the draft and gives a critical commentary on individual points.

After long discussions about the introduction of corporate criminal liability, the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection presented a first draft bill for a new Corporate Sanctions Act in August 2019. The act introduces a major shift in German Criminal law by proposing severe sanctions on companies for corporate criminal offenses. It includes regulations on internal investigations, compliance management systems and legal privilege. Since it was published, the act is discussed intensely among legal experts, politicians and the public. The following article presents the most important provisions of the draft bill. In addition, the authors compare the act to further jurisdiction’s legislation, discuss potential impacts on companies, and provide proposals for improvements for the further legislative process

Swedish criminal law does not allow for corporate criminal liability as it is built on the basic principle of personal criminal liability, meaning that only private individuals are considered able to possess criminal liability and consequently commit crimes. However, a corporation may be subject to corporate fines and other sanctions if a crime has been committed during the corporation’s operations. Corporate fines are the closest equivalent to corporate criminal liability under Swedish law, which sole purposes is punitive although it has been deemed impossible to categorize corporate fines as a punishment in the strictest sense. This article will further explain the design of corporate fines today, the problems resulting from corporations not being able to possess criminal liability as well as the proposed changes to corporate fines from a critical perspective.

The principle that legal entities can be held criminally liable was first introduced into Belgian law in 1999. Some 20 years later, Belgian Parliament reviewed the rules, and adopted a number of significant changes. The present article offers a high-level overview of the currently applicable legal regime.

The aim of this article is to illustrate potential conduits for money laundering in the consulting sector in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. A qualitative content analysis of 100 semi-standardized expert interviews with both criminals and prevention experts was conducted, along with a quantitative survey of 200 compliance officers, allowing for the identification of concrete methods of money laundering in the consulting sector. Due to their excellent reputation, consulting companies in German-speaking countries in Europe continue to be extraordinarily attractive to money launderers. Most notably, they can be used for layering and integration, as well as for working around various issues with tax codes. As the qualitative findings are based on semi-standardized interviews, they are limited to only the 100 interviewees’ perspectives. The identification of loopholes and weaknesses in the current anti-money laundering mechanisms is meant to provide compliance officers, law enforcement agencies, and legislators with valuable insights into how criminals operate, with the aim of helping them to more effectively combat money laundering. While the previous literature focuses on organizations fighting money laundering and on the improvement of anti-money laundering measures, this article illustrates how money launderers operate to avoid arrest. Prevention methods and criminal perspectives are equally taken into account.