Criminal liability of legal persons in the Czech Republic

On December 1, 2016 will come into effect an amendment to Act No. 418/2011 Coll., On criminal liability of legal persons ("ACLLP") and the proceedings against them, which will bring fundamental changes in the concept of corporate criminal liability.

While according to the original version of the act adopted in 2011, a legal entity could have been held responsible solely for crimes explicitly listed in § 7 of the ACLLP, it has been newly adopted an exactly opposite principle whereas a legal entity shall now be responsible for all crimes except those mentioned in § 7 of the ACLLP. In fact, this represents an expansion of crimes attributed to a legal entity by a multipole number. Following this legislation amendment, within the enumerated offenses of a legal persons shall be counted also almost all crimes of a pecuniary nature (newly for eg. embezzlement, breach of trust, damage and favoring of creditors, but also offenses in connection with export of dual-use and military material; and other crimes, such as unauthorized use of personal data).

According the amended wording of the ACLLP, a legal entity shall be responsible for crimes committed
• via its statutory authority;
• via its executives or
• other persons exercising a decisive influence or
• employees while performing their work tasks.

In the event of behavior of employees performing their work tasks, a legal person shall be liable for an offense solely shall the employee act based on instructions of authorities of the legal person or persons listed under a) - c), or, if no action has been taken and no sufficient checks were carried out to prevent such behavior of employees (compliance).

A significant change brought by the amended ACLLP is an opportunity of legal entities to exculpate themselves from liability for a crime in the event they make every effort which could be reasonably required from them to prevent an offense to be committed by persons mentioned in a) - d). However, a further specification of the term "all efforts" shall probably be brought later on by judicial interpretation.