Corporate Criminal Liability: An Analysis

Rishita Raj, Symbiosis Law School, Noida, Symbiosis International (International University)

INTRODUCTION

This is a legal principle wearing the badge of ‘corporate criminal liability’ to assign legal responsibility for the criminal actions of individuals to the corporation they work for. Due to corporate fraud and imperative for corporate governance, this idea has been transformed drastically. In previous years criminal accountability was considered as a liability that was provided to persons only but with time the act has considered the corporations as legal persons capable of committing crimes. The latest trends in the concept as a legal category rely on the vision of how companies are capable of committing crimes on their part by their policies, organizational culture, and management decisions. When it is tried to hold the corporations accountable, it is used as a tool to enforce ethical standards, demand corporations to act responsibly, and prevent wrong doing. This evolution is in response to the changed comprehension of the fact that it is not just the subscribers of social resources, but business structures as such, that engage in perpetrating social wrongs and must therefore be supervised by the law and punished when necessary to restore public confidence and secure the stability of the commercial world.