CRIMINAL LIABILITY OF LEGAL ENTITIES IN ENGLISH CRIMINAL LAW: LEGISLATION, DOCTRINE AND ENFORCEMENT

The article discusses issues of theory, practice and legislation on the functioning of the criminal liability of legal entities in English criminal law. In this vein, the genesis and typology of theories that define a legal entity as a subject of a crime are revealed. Thus, taking into account English law, doctrine and practice, two conceptual approaches are used to define a legal entity as the subject of a crime. The functioning of the first approach is typical for “human” crimes, for example, unintentional murder. The second approach is related to bringing legal entities to criminal responsibility for criminal acts committed by its employees who have the ability to make managerial decisions and carry out specific actions in favor of the legal entity. At the same time, legal practice is increasingly faced with the guilt of officials in committing crimes related to causing death and harm to people, which, according to scientists, requires the concretization of the concept of “corporate criminal” and the transformation of vicarious liability into the theory of identification.

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