Parallele Bestrafung von juristischen und natürlichen Personen

Abstract

Starting with a description of two recent criminal cases dealing with the responsibility for acts of misconduct of the Japanese Snow Brand Corporation, the article analyzes to what extent and under what circumstances corporations and other legal entities and their representatives are being held responsible under Japanese criminal law. Unlike the Criminal Code, there are numerous provisions laid down in various Japanese laws that explicitly provide a basis for criminal sanctions against such an entity itself in case of illegal conduct. Nevertheless, it is still very contentious in criminal law theory on what grounds a legal entity itself can be held responsible for misconduct on the part their representatives or other people related to it. In contrast, the criminal responsibility of representatives and employees of the legal entity who acted on behalf of it seems to be generally less problematic to justify from the standpoint of criminal law theory. However, it is often very difficult to prosecute these persons in practice. Therefore, different approaches undertaken by courts and legal scholars in Japan were designed to facilitate the establishment of criminal responsibility of representatives.

(The Editors)