Rãspunderea penalã a persoanei juridice potrivit legii nr. 278/2006
The Criminal Liability of Legal Entities - Law no. 278/2006.

Summary/Abstract: Law no. 278 of July 12th 2006, amending the Romanian criminal code, has established, in premiere for our criminal system, the criminal liability of legal entities. In contrast to past failed attempts, which have tried to resemble the French model, this cohesive and practical regulation pertains to the Belgian paradigm. According to art. 191 of the penal code, “legal entities, excepting the State, public authorities and public institutions active outside the private domain, are criminally responsible for offences committed in carrying out their object of activity or in their name or interest, if the act has been perpetrated with the form of guilt prescribed by the law The penal responsibility of the moral persona does not exclude penal responsibility of the individual that has contributed, in any way, to the perpetration of the same offence”. The article states that criminal liability can only be attributed to a moral persona, a legal entity recognized as such by the civil law. However, not all legal entities are criminally responsible. Aside the State, the law also excludes public authorities and public institutions active outside the private domain. As opposed to other legislations, where relevance is set by the nature of the activity relating to which the crime was committed, the Romanian legislator has chosen as criterion for exclusion the aptitude of the legal entity to perform activities that do not belong to the private domain- activities that are, according to the law, not eligible to be carried out by an individual or by a private-law entity. The law stipulates a general criminal liability for legal entities, as they can, in principle; perpetrate any offence, without regard to its nature. The courts are then to establish, on a case-to-case basis, if the conditions for penal liability are met. This regulation does not limit the sphere of individuals that can engage the penal responsibility of a legal entity- it thus wants to avoid giving legal entities the possibility of escaping liability through formally ascribing decision-making attributes to other individuals that the ones identified by the law. On subject- matter, the legal entity is responsible for crimes committed: in fulfilling its object of activity; in its interest or in its name. The legal entity must commit the offence on the basis of a subjective elementthis element must be distinct from the one that describes the act committed by the individual. In this way, the crime must be based either on the intention of the legal entity or on its negligence (e.g. deficient internal organization, insufficient security measures). Due to the fact that the guilt of the legal entity is separate from the guilt of the individual that has committed the material act, the two personas can hold different or identical forms of culpability (i.e., intention in one case, negligence in the other). In what regards the relation between the liability of the legal entity and th

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