The Common Law-inspired decision to enlist corporations as precious, proactive allies in the essential activities of detection and combat of crime, and particularly of bribery, has often been looked at with the typical skepticism of civil law systems, which – a long way from accepting the idea of equal cooperation in the fact-finding mission – require a neat distinction of roles in proceedings. Nonetheless, it is by now undeniable that the perception of corporate compliance in the Italian legal system has undergone a significant transformation in recent years.
The structure of Legislative Decree n. 231/2001, which established for the first time in the Italian legal system an administrative liability of legal persons and entities without legal personality for the crimes committed by employees and executives, outlines a correction model that views the conduct held by the accused legal entity during an investigation and the related criminal proceedings as one of the cornerstones triggering the virtuous path towards compliance monitoring, which should bring the entity back on the tracks of profitable compliance. Continue reading