CRIMINOLOGICAL AND CRIMINAL-LAW CHARACTERISTICS OF CORPORATE AND OFFICIAL CRIMES: PROBLEMS OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the criminological and criminal-law characteristics of corporate and official crimes, which are increasingly regarded in modern scholar studies and law-enforcement practice as one of the most complex forms of socially dangerous conduct. The study proceeds from the premise that corporate crime and white-collar crime cannot be adequately explained solely through classical models of ordinary criminality, because their commission is associated with a combination of economic motivation, the misuse of entrusted managerial and power-related authority, the specific institutional structure of legal entities, and the difficulty of revealing the causal link between the conduct of particular individuals and socially dangerous consequences [9; 11; 14]. It is substantiated that, for the proper qualification of corporate and official crimes, decisive importance belongs not only to the general legal structure of a criminal offence, but also to the ability of the law-applier to prove the protected object, the objective side, the subject, and the subjective side within complex multi-layered economic and managerial relations [1; 2; 4; 18]. The article argues that the social danger of such crimes is largely reflected in the scale of economic, environmental, social, and reputational damage, which often exceeds the consequences of traditional acquisitive offences [12; 13; 17]. Particular attention is devoted to the problems of proving, in court, the elements of the corpus delicti, including the establishment of consequences, motive, purpose, emotional state, and the causal relationship between a managerial decision or corporate practice and the fact of damage [2; 4; 18]. Separate consideration is given to the contradictions that arise in connection with criminal-law assessment of the conduct of legal persons, including the debate concerning the possibility of a "collective mens rea" and the limits of applying criminal-law measures to legal entities under Ukrainian law [1; 19; 27; 28]. On the basis of national legislation, doctrine, and a number of international cases, including BP Deepwater Horizon, Enron, Theranos, McKinsey and others, the article demonstrates that corporate crimes constitute not merely a form of economic deviation, but also a serious challenge for contemporary criminal policy, since they require an interdisciplinary approach, a developed evidentiary methodology, proper regulatory construction of corporate liability, and strengthened control over high-risk sectors [20–28]. It is concluded that modern counteraction to corporate crime should not rely on the simplified identification of a legal entity as a "criminal", but on a clear differentiation between individual guilt, organizational benefit, defects of corporate control, and publicly dangerous consequences made possible through the use of managerial, official, or power-related authority [1; 5; 6; 16].