Since the coming into force of the new Penal Code (Code pénal) on March 1, 1994, French law recognizes corporate criminal liability. The very large majority of French legal scholars accept today the necessity and the value of recognizing corporate criminal liability. The first subsection of art. 121-2 Penal Code provides that “legal per- sons, with the exclusion of the state, are criminally liable according to the distinctions in arts. 121-4 to 121-7 for offenses committed on their behalf by their organs or by their representatives”. The French legislator opted for a relatively wide scope of corporate criminal liability: corpo- rate criminal liability applies, in principle, to all offenses and to all legal persons, thus to companies, but it is required that an organ or repre- sentative of the legal person commits the offense “on the behalf of” this entity. Penalties for legal persons may be of a pecuniary and a non-pecuniary nature. There are penalties that can be incurred only by legal persons. No general principles exist in French criminal law that the judge must respect when deciding the penalties incurred by a convicted legal person. However, it is possible to derive some guiding principles when it comes to sanctioning them. The French legislator also established specific procedural rules con- cerning legal persons. However, the majority of the rules of criminal procedure applicable to natural persons also apply, in principle, to le- gal persons, with the exception of particular statutes, which provide the contrary. K. Deckert
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 02:54:19 +0000
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