Corporate liability within the legal framework in Albania - A comparative perspective with international and EU standards

• Pages: 7-21

7

Balkan Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

IIPCCL Publishing, Graz-Austria

ISSN 2410-759X

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

Vol. 7 No.2

September, 2021

Corporate liability within the legal framework in Albania - A comparative

perspective with international and EU standards

Evgjeni Bashari

University of Tirana (Albania)

Artur Metani

University of Tirana (Albania)

Abstract

The inf‌l uence that multinational companies have had during the past decades in the political

and economic areas, being in domestic, as well as in the international level, has vested them

with great f‌i nancial power. History has shown that this power in many occasions has been

used, not in a proper manner, merely for the benef‌i ts of the corporations, leading to eventually

criminal of‌f ences commi ed by these legal entities. In order to hold them liable, the concept of

criminal liability of the legal persons, commi ing criminal of‌f ences by the natural persons, for

the benef‌i t of the legal entity, has been developed and regulated through dif‌f erent domestic

and international instruments.

This has been and currently is an evolving concept, nevertheless this paper gives a thorough

analysis of the adopted and applicable international and European standards, in a comparative

prospective with the Albanian legal framework. The relevant aspects of corporate criminal

liability in the f‌i eld of criminal of‌f enses are elaborated, along with the necessary punitive

instruments adopted in dif‌f erent jurisdictions. An overall assessment of the Albanian legal

system in relation to the acquis Communautaire is provided, emphasizing the need for further

measure to be taken in order to improve it further and to reach full compatibility.

Keywords: Corporate, criminal liability, sanctions, international principles, European Union.

Introduction

In the last decades, the great inf‌l uence and the importance of a legal person’s activity

in the economic and political areas, in the domestic, as well as the international level,

has become clearly apparent. As a consequence, the exercise of their activity might

comport eventual legal infringements, which can lead to the risk that their activity

might become occasionally fraudulent, or of a criminal nature. It is inevitable that the

evolution and development of society bring the necessity to create or adapt the legal

framework in order to discipline legal situations which lack in their regulation.

As a ma er of fact, the traditional doctrine of criminal law has never truly accepted

the concept of criminal liability of legal persons, taking into consideration the fact that

in order to commit a criminal of‌f ence there are some necessary elements that need to

be fulf‌i lled in that regard. The principle of “societas delinquere non potest” has always

functioned as a natural extension of the concept of individual criminal liability and

the concept of guilt. In that sense, the analysis of these concepts on its own gives

the prima facie perception that the a ribution of these subjective elements of criminal

liability to legal persons is impossible. Being conceived as a legal f‌i ction, a corporation

cannot be a ributed with actus reus and neither possess mens rea. This contradiction is