In June 2022 the Law Commission presented the government with ten options for reforming the law of corporate criminal liability, with specific focus on economic crime. In this article, Nicholas Medcroft KC and Leonora Sagan address what they consider to be the key weakness in the Commission’s approach, together with those options which are most likely to provide coherent alternatives, or at least sensible improvements, to the current law. While they take the view that the Law Commission missed the opportunity to reject the identification doctrine altogether as both anachronistic and inherently unsuited to establishing culpability in modern corporate contexts, they welcome the proposed increased emphasis on “failure to prevent” models of liability and the recognition that an administrative system for the imposition of monetary penalties can provide valuable additional means of redress.
This piece was originally produced for Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law. To read the full piece, please click here.
