La introducción de la responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas en la legislación española

Abstract

For the first time in our criminal codification, the Spanish Penal Code establishes a regulation on criminal liability of legal persons. This gives raise to a legal discussion about the specifics rules of the referred criminal responsibility. The Spanish legal regulation asumes a hybrid model based on the vicarious liability, which is founded on the crime of the individual, but which is characterized by certain traits of independence, so there may be criminal liability of the legal person without the concurrence of the individual’s one. The main problem is to insert this model in the dogmatic foundations of modern Criminal Law.