Fundamental issues of the “criminal compliance” with regard to the responsibility and criminal imputation of corporate entity

Abstract

Criminal law deals with the activity of citizens aimed at the use of wealth. The appropriate responses to crimes in the business environment must weigh particularities of the criminogenic factor of legal persons, enhanced by membership in a group, the greatest injury, access to more and more sophisticated means, expert advice and difficulty in the indivi[1]dualization of the person in charge based on the limitations to identify the natural person whose decision and whose action was reflected in the wrongful act. In addition, from a public perspective there is a growing concern of the State for the design of a criminal policy that can respond to the growing corporate crime that uses the corporate structure as a tool for the commission of crimes; The company appears in this scheme of the criminal system as a new subject of imputation of responsibility. As a consequence of this situation, it should be borne in mind that the rise of compliance programs together with the implementation of complian[1]ce systems is usually framed within an ethical conception of business activity, which should not be confused with the taxative and subsidiary framework that characterizes criminal law, analyzing the performance of criminal compliance programs and their usefulness to condemn, exonerate or mitigate the criminal responsibility of companies and the people who run them.