Латвийское законодательство об уголовной ответственности юридических лиц

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issues of criminal liability of legal entities in the Republic of Latvia, established in 2005 by amending the Criminal Law of the Republic of Latvia. Attention is drawn to the fact that in the Latvian legislation a model of criminal liability is implemented, in which a legal entity is recognized not as a subject of a crime, but as a subject of criminal liability, to which measures of a coercive nature provided for by the Criminal Law are applied. At the same time, only legal entities of private law are subject to criminal liability, while the law does not provide for bringing public legal entities to criminal liability. The reasons for the application of enforcement measures to legal entities and the types of such measures are considered. It is indicated that compulsory measures against a legal entity can be applied for a criminal act if it was committed in the interests of the relevant legal entity, in its favor or as a result of improper supervision on its part by a responsible individual who acted individually or as part of a collegial body of a legal entity. In this case, a specially authorized person means a person who acted: on the basis of the right to represent a legal entity or act on its behalf; on the basis of the right to make decisions on behalf of a legal entity; or on the basis of the right to exercise control within a legal entity. The author considers the enforcement measures applied to legal entities (liquidation; restriction of rights; confiscation of property; monetary recovery), as well as criminal procedural issues of the application of compulsory measures to legal entities.