ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the definition of a company for the purposes of the criminal law and how companies can be held criminally responsible. It examines different ways of approaching the punishment of corporate crimes through reference to different types of corporate crimes. The ‘company’ holds a particular – and perhaps peculiar – status in law. Legally speaking, a company is a legal person. The company must be a kind of commercial organization that forms a new and separate legal personality from the individuals who create and sustain it through incorporation as its directors and shareholders. A company is no mere collection of individuals, but a distinct form of organization centred around shared pursuits held in common by its members. Ian Lee offers a different model of corporate criminal liability built on the notion of team membership. The primary form of punishing companies is through monetary fines.
