Corporate Criminal Liability

Background

The current law relating to corporate criminal liability has attracted a great deal of criticism. For some offences, a company can be held criminally liable on the basis of strict liability. For some offences which involve a fault element, a company can be held criminally liable on the basis of the doctrines of vicarious liability and delegation. For other offences which involve a fault element, it may be possible to convict a company on the basis of vicarious corporate liability, if the offence concerns retail regulation or market regulation. For serious offences which involve a fault element, a company can only be held criminally liable if a high-ranking officer or employee of the company satisfies the fault element of the offence – the "identification" theory. In the context of manslaughter, the problems associated with the identification theory resulted in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. However, the identification theory is still relevant to other serious offences.

As part of the Commission's previous project on codification of the substantive criminal law, we have already undertaken a considerable amount of work. It was our intention to publish a consultation paper by the end of 2007 but, following the request by the Government to review the law of bribery, we had to defer further work. Our work in relation to bribery has confirmed our view that a general review of the law of corporate criminal liability is essential. We intend to return to this topic and to publish a consultation paper in late 2009.

For more information, contact the criminal law team or go to the team page.

NOTE - We are happy to provide information about our projects. However, we cannot give legal advice or deal with individual cases. Nor do we help with student assignments.