The History of the Development of the French Laws on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities
Authors:   Leading Research Scientist of the Department of Criminal and Criminal Procedure Legislation, Judicial Administration of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation. Candidate of Legal Sciences, Professor Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Fedorov Aleksandr V. , Krichevtsev Mikhail V. ,   Assistant Professor of the Department of Theory and History of State and Law of the Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management. Candidate of Historical Sciences
Published: November 2021

The article reviews the history of development of French laws on criminal liability of legal entities. The authors note that the institution of criminal liability of legal entities (collective criminal liability) dates back to the ancient times and has been forming in the French territory for a long time. Initially, it was established in the acts on collective liability residents of certain territories, in particular, in the laws of the Salian Franks. This institution was inherited from the Franks by the law of the medieval France, and got transferred from the medieval period to the French criminal law of the modern period. The article reviews the laws of King Louis XIV as an example of establishment of collective criminal liability: the Criminal Ordinance of 1670 and the Ordinances on Combating Vagrancy and Goods Smuggling of 1706 and 1711. For the first time ever, one can study the Russian translation of the collective criminal liability provisions of the said laws. The authors state that although the legal traditions of collective liability establishment were interrupted by the transformations caused by the French Revolution of 1789 to 1794, criminal liability of legal entities remained in Article 428 of the French Penal Code of 1810 as a remnant of the past and was abolished only as late as in 1957. The publication draws attention to the fact that the criminal law codification process was not finished in France, and some laws stipulating criminal liability of legal entities were in effect in addition to the French Penal Code of 1810: the Law on the Separation of Church and State of December 9, 1905; the Law of January 14, 1933; the Law on Maritime Trade of July 19, 1934; the Ordinance on Criminal Prosecution of the Press Institutions Cooperating with Enemies during World War II of May 5, 1945. The authors describe the role of the Nuremberg Trials and the documents of the Council of Europe in the establishment of the French laws on criminal liability of legal entities, in particular, Resolution (77) 28 On the Contribution of Criminal Law to the Protection of the Environment, Recommendation No. R (81) 12 On Economic Crime, the Recommendation No. R (82) 15 On the Role of Criminal Law in Consumer Protection and Recommendation No. (88) 18 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States Concerning Liability of Enterprises Having Legal Personality for Offences Committed in the Exercise of Their Activities. The authors conclude that the introduction of the institution of criminal liability of legal entities is based on objective conditions and that research of the history of establishment of the laws on collective liability is of great importance for understanding of the modern legal regulation of the issues of criminal liability of legal entities.