Instrumental legal persons that cannot be prosecuted for the purposes of the Art. 31 bis of the Spanish Penal Code: possibilities for a criminal response.

Abstract

This paper analyses the possibilities that exist for instrumental legal persons, i.e. those whose sole or almost sole purpose is the commission of crimes (especially, but not only, the money laundering), to be criminally convicted. The first part of the paper systematized the arguments that lead to the conclusion that criminal conviction is not possible. It then looks for alternative formulas of response, which are not based on the reproach of the entity itself (which is typical of the liability model), but which treat this entity as a dangerous instrument in the hands of the perpetrator, using the accessory consequences and, in particular, the different forms of confiscation introduced in recent criminal reforms to deactivate it.

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