Reforming corporate criminal liability: a missed opportunity to modernise the law

In June 2022 the Law Commission presented the government with ten options for reforming the law of corporate criminal liability, with specific focus on economic crime. In this article we address what we consider to be the key weakness in the Commission’s approach, together with those options which are most likely to provide coherent alternatives, or at least sensible improvements, to the current law. While we take the view that the Law Commission missed the opportunity to reject the identification doctrine altogether as both anachronistic and inherently unsuited to establishing culpability in modern corporate contexts, we welcome the proposed increased emphasis on “failure to prevent” models of liability and the recognition that an administrative system for the imposition of monetary penalties can provide valuable additional means of redress.