Historical-dogmatic deconstruction of companies’ criminal liability

Abstract

This article examines the historical-dogmatic foundations of corporate criminal liability through systematic analysis of normative, theological, philological, linguistic, and contextual sources that reveal early expressions of collective punishability. The study particularly develops a detailed examination of premodern and contemporary manifestations of punitive ascription to corporations, aiming to determine to what extent praeter-legal and normative criteria existed for imputing criminal acts to collective entities.

On this basis, it challenges the communis opinio linking legal persons' criminal liability to three widespread assertions in specialized literature: (i) the alleged absence of a corporate criminal liability regime in Roman law, (ii) the attribution of the maxim societas delinquere non potest to medieval canon law, and (iii) the presumed exogenous origin of corporate criminal imputation. The analysis ultimately demonstrates these premises' lack of substantive support while revealing how historical dilemmas continue to resonate with unexpected relevance in contemporary Latin American legal systems.