Corporate Criminal Liability – National and International Responses
The process of globalization and the growth of interdependence in economic, social and environmental activities by corporate entities requires greater international cooperation between countries. At the same time, the amount of economic and white-collar-crime has grown substantially. One of the most pressing global issues is the predominance of national and multinational corporations in economic transactions and their accountability. In this context, the development of corporate criminal liability has become a problem which a growing number of prosecutors and courts have to deal with nowadays. In the common law world, following standing principles in tort law, English courts began sentencing corporations in the middle of the last century for statutory offenses. On the other hand, a large number of European continental law countries have not been able to or not been willing to incorporate the concept of corporal criminal liability into their legal systems. The fact that crime has shifted from almost solely individual perpetrators only 150 years ago, to white-collar crimes on an ever increasing scale has not yet been taken into account in many legal systems. At the same time, crime has also become increasingly international in nature