La personalidad jurídica de empresas transnacionales como requisito de la responsabilidad penal del art. 31 bis cp. Consideraciones en el contexto de la Unión Europea

Abstract

Considering that the international courts are not vested with criminal jurisdiction over legal entities, corporate criminal responsibility can only be held under national legal systems. The present paper aims at examining the legal personality as the basis for the possibility of imposing criminal liability to a corporation, paying special attention to cross-border business actors within the EU. The paper considers the Spanish regulation of nationality regarding legal persons and the jurisprudence of the ECJ relating to the freedom of establishment of companies in Europe (mutual recognition of the legal capacity within the single market). The paper concludes that location decisions, mobility or transfer of business activities may determine the attribution (or exclusion) of the companies’ legal personality according to national law, and therefore, as criminal law subjects.