Law Commission consultation on corporate criminal liability

Overview

This is a public consultation by the Law Commission for England and Wales.

This project concerns the criminal liability of legal persons, such as companies and limited liability partnerships. At present such legal persons usually may only be convicted of a criminal offence if it is an offence without any fault element, sometimes known as a “strict liability” offence, or because an individual or group of individuals who are very senior within the organisation has the necessary fault element. We are asking whether the law should be reformed in this regard. We also ask a series of related questions about the criminal liability of corporations for economic crime, and about the individual liability of directors and senior managers for offences committed by corporations.

For more information about this project, click here.

We recommend that consultees read the discussion paper before responding to the consultation. Consultees do not need to answer all the questions if they are only interested in some aspects of the consultation.

About the Law Commission: The Law Commission is a statutory body, created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 (“the 1965 Act”) for the purpose of promoting the reform of the law. It is an advisory Non Departmental Public Body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). The Law Commission is independent of Government. For more information about the Law Commission please click here.

Responses to this consultation: We may publish or disclose information you provide us in response to this consultation, including personal information. For more information on how we consult and how we may use responses to the consultation, please see page ii of the consultation paper. For information about how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy notice.