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, reality or fiction, identifies the criminal punishment of legal entities. It is argued that the action is deliberated and executed for 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 the acceptance culpability of companies or business groups. The direct criminalization of companies or business groups is accepted according to the Brazilian Constitution (art. 225, §3º), but it’s not regularly allowed double imputation. Despite of contrary understanding from different Courts, it shows that only groups are punishable for felonies or crimes, and also that they respond in court for habeas corpus. Not only environmental crimes (Federal Law No. 9.605 / 1998), but also the abuses committed by the legal person of the economic order and against the popular economy (art. 173, § 5 of the Constitution) can and should be subject to classification criminal. 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, about the social order). Finally, the analysis of the criminal punishment of companies or business groups is included in this study of sustainable development