Corporate Criminal Liability in Italy: Criteria for Ascribing "Actus Reus" and Unintentional Crimes

The chapter examines the Italian legal framework of corporate criminal liability, with specific regard to the issues raised by the introduction of unintentional crimes in the ever-expanding list of offences covered under the regulation. Legislative decree No. 231/2001, implementing the framework statute enacted by the Parliament, has introduced in Italy a new system of liability for corporations and other legal entities for crimes committed in their interest or to their advantage. The original framework statute foresaw a detailed list of both intentional and unintentional crimes, but the Government, drafting the Legislative decree, adopted a mechanism for attributing the actus reus to the corporation that is modeled on the scheme of intentional crimes only. As a result, the introduction in 2007 of the offence of corporate manslaughter has posed serious practical problems. In fact, the criteria for ascribing criminal liability to corporations and other legal entities require that the offence be committed “in the interest or to the advantage” of the legal entity (Art. 5 D.Lgs. 231/2001) whereas corporate manslaughter can never logically meet this criteria. Finally, this chapter examines different approaches to the interpretation of the mechanism for ascribing criminal responsibility to corporations with respect to unintentional crimes, with a particular focus on corporate manslaughter and the solution given by the recent judicial decisions that also casted doubts on the constitutional legitimacy of the Legislative Decree.