Corporate Compliance Required Under Italian Legal System
Corrado Ferrari Mainieri Pedeferri & soc, Rome
by Caterina Mainieri and Paolo Passino
The Legislative Decree no. 231, dated June 8, 2001 (Lgs. D. 231/2001), has introduced in the Italian legal system a new type of liability for legal entities, companies and associations, including bodies without legal personality (hereinafter referred to as: Company). This new regime of liability allows to directly sanction – through the payment of an administrative fine of considerable amount and through the limitation
to the capacity of the Company to carry out certain types of commercial activities - the Company, that, with or without awareness, took advantage from, has an interest in, has received a benefit from a criminal offence committed by individuals who represent the Company or act in any way in the interest of the latter. As a matter of fact, the legislator conceived the Company’s liability as a consequence of negligent conduct and, therefore, such liability seems to arise from the non existence or non observance of the required security measures and control standards within the Company’s organization. Thus, broadly speaking, by creating this new type of liability and by granting at the same time an exemption from liability in specific cases the main purpose of Lgs. D. 231/2001 is to induce companies to adopt codes of ethics and internal rules in order to prevent managers, executives, employees and external collaborators from committing economic crimes against the Public Administration, as well as other corporate criminal offences.
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