A responsabilidade penal da pessoa jurídica à luz dos pressupostos do artigo 3º da Lei nº 9.605/98

Resumo

The criminal liability of legal entities has always been a controversial topic due to their inability to act and commit crimes except through natural persons. Unconstitutional or not, the fact is that legal entities can be held liable for crimes in Brazil since at least 1998, when the environmental crimes law (Law 9605/98) was enacted. Article 3 of this law states that legal entities may be held criminally liable in cases where (i) there is a criminal infraction, (ii) said criminal infraction was committed by decision of its legal or contractual representative, or of its collegiate body, and (iii) it was committed in its interest or for its benefit. These requirements, however, are not taken seriously in practice, which is due in part to misinterpretations of the judgment of Extraordinary Appeal No. 548.181/PR held in 2013 by the first panel of the STF, under the rapporteurship of Justice Rosa Weber. Although this decision has ruled out the obligation of imputation of environmental crimes to individuals and legal entities simultaneously, did not fail to require the identification of those three assumptions so that the collective entity can be held responsible. The paper starts from this context and intends to investigate the arguments and discussions in the scope of this appeal to extract from it the clearest possible orientation as to the necessary requirements for the criminalization of legal entities. It also aims to clarify the meaning of each of them, especially and based on practical cases, that of the "decision of a legal representative, contractual or collegiate body", which is the central requirement for the imputation of the crime of the individual to the legal entity. This assumption requires a minimum knowledge of the management structure of the legal entities under investigation, as well as the functions and decision-making powers (and their limits) granted to their administrator(s) or contractual agents, a subject to which the work is also dedicated from the perspective of limited liability companies and corporations.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Dissertação

Ano

2022

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/31728

Palavras-chave

Criminal liability of the legal entityAssumptions of art. 3 of the environmental crimes lawDecision of legal representativeContractual and collegiate bodyManagement structure of limited liability companies and corporationsResponsabilidade penal da pessoa jurídicaPressupostos do art. 3º da lei de crimes ambientaisDecisão de representante legal, contratual e órgão colegiadoEstrutura das sociedades anônimas e limitadasDireitoResponsabilidade penal das pessoas jurídicasResponsabilidade por danos ambientaisBrasil. [Lei n. 9.605, de 12 de fevereiro de 1998]Sociedades por ações - Legislação