(CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT OF COMPANIES OR BUSINESS GROUPS IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
companies or business groups - criminal punishment - environment - economic development and sustainability
Starting from the legal concept of the companies or business groups, real or fictional, including those that provide public service, is possible to know about theirs ways to work and theirs goals. The action itself planned and executed for those companies or groups, focussed on theirs own benefit and inside theirs social object, consists of autonomy conduct and could become in felonies or crimes. It should be confronting and overcoming paradigms, making possible to accept culpability of companies or business groups, not only from theirs managers. The direct criminalization of companies or business groups is accepted according to the Brazilian Constitution (art. 225, §3º), bus it’s not regularly allowed double imputation. Despite of contrary understanding from different Courts, those private companies or groups are punishable for felonies or crimes, as long as respond in court for habeas corpus. Not only environmental crimes (Federal Law nº 9.605/ 1998) but also civil offense (Federal Law nº 12.846 / 2013 c/c art. 173, §5º, Brazilian Constitution) should be committed by companies or business groups against the economic order and against popular economy, as the same of criminal conducts. The economic development connected to the environment, for example in the General Principles of Economic Activity, especially in terms of free competition (Art. 170, inc IV of the Constitution) and the environmental protection (Article 170, inc. VI, Brazilian, Constitution and Chapter VI, inserted in title VIII, that means about the social order). Finally, the analysis of the criminal punishment of companies or business groups is included in this study of sustainable development.