Liability of Legal Persons for Corruption Offences

The publication reflects a growing trend worldwide in the last 15 years towards holding legal entities criminally or administratively accountable for economic crime. From the first big cases of corporate prosecution for economic crimes, such as the Siemens, BAE Systems, and Daimler AG, to more recent examples of cross-jurisdictional investigations and prosecutions of Erricson, MTS, Skansen, Deutsche Bank, and Société Générale for suspected involvement in corruption and money-laundering, among other offences, liability of legal entities is steadily gaining equal footing to individual liability internationally.

The paper, published by ‘Partnership for Good Governance’ programme is a result of multidisciplinary efforts undertaken by the Council of Europe from 2013 to 2018 in supporting Eastern Partnership and Western Balkan countries to address the roles played by legal entities in different economic crime schemes.