CONCLUSION

Taking into account the analysis attempted with regards to the KSA, the following could be underlined as far as the country’s legal framework is concerned with regards to corporate criminal responsibility.

Firstly, the relevant legislation should be amended. The CL’15 should be revised, particularly the sections related to corporate crimes, namely, section 213. The CCL’31 (enacted some 80 years ago) should be updated. A number of its sections have already been cancelled due to the issuance of other laws.

Secondly, the KSA must create independent and specialised commer­cial courts with qualified and trained judges and prosecutors to hear only commercial cases.

Thirdly, the database of commercial cases and the commercial statis­tics, in particular corporate cases and statistics, should be published in the KSA. Such publication would help judges, investors, companies, lawyers and researchers.

Fourthly, an official English translation of the legal database and statistics should be available. This would avoid any misunderstandings that might otherwise arise due to a lack of an officially recognised text or use of a poor translation.

Fifthly, the length of judicial proceedings should be appropriate, and the problem of unreasonable delay in judicial proceedings should be tackled. To this end, unnecessary postponing of any claim against a corporate entity should be avoided; judges should be specialised; and decisions should be published in such a way that a large number of consumers will be aware of the crime. Moreover, modern technical means should be adopted in all courts. A network linking all courts and the ministry could be facilitated as well as easy communication and interaction among judges and staff, lawyers and disputants encouraged, with a view to easier transfer of the new legislation, amendments to laws and any other important information.

Sixthly, the system of sanctions also needs to be reformed in order to better address the current corporate reality and address corporate crimes in a more punitive way. To this end, fines should be higher and length of imprisonment longer.

To achieve this, it is crucial that breaches of corporate law should be prosecuted and those who are convicted for their criminal behaviour should be duly penalised. This principle must be applied irrespective of whether the convicted is a natural person or a company. The CL’15 does not prefer the imposition of criminal liability against a company and consequently most prosecutorial activities are directed towards individual wrongdoing. A framework for corporate criminal liability that reflects corporate behaviour should be developed. Similarly, to this end, and with a view to better deterring corporate crimes, such crimes should be reported to the appropriate authority in the appropriate time.

In order to develop a strong market, complex supportive mechanisms are necessary. To this end, the analysis in the chapter adheres to the proposition that the laws of the jurisdiction should be more supportive. In addition, rules imposing corporate criminal liability should be strict. Companies are real entities, which possess immense power and may perform actions that can harm individuals as well as society. In this context, regulatory authorities and governments should possess a full range of legal tools that will allow them to combat the various forms of corporate crime more effectively.

Within the context of better enhancing growth and competitiveness in the market, corporate law plays a very important role. It provides, in particular, the means whereby companies can develop their functional role with a view to forming the conditions and the rules for economic transactions in the market. This objective should be specified by a coherent and solid legal framework for corporate criminal liability.

Corporate crimes occur at high frequency across the globe.

The provisions of the legislation, such as that in force in the United States, impose penalties on the companies for the corporate crimes they commit.^[705] These penalties may be fines and/or an imprisonment. During the past decades, however, praxis has demonstrated the strength of penalties that may be needed to create a truly effective deterrent preventative system, such as in the UK system.^[706] Corporate lobbying and their ability to influence legislative frameworks are so well developed that such entities are still able to commit severe crimes and often escape with relatively small fines.

There exist countries and parts of countries which have become politically sensitive to such kinds of crime. In Australia, for instance, the Law Reform Commission of New South Wales has pointed out that:

Corporate crime poses a significant threat to the welfare of the community. Given the pervasive presence of corporations in a wide range of activities in our society, and the impact of their actions on a much wider group of people than are affected by individual action, the potential for both economic and physical harm caused by a corporation is great.^[707]

Other countries, however, such as continental law countries, have failed to integrate corporate criminal law into their legal system.^[708]

With regards to the implementation of legal schema for corporate criminal liability, the KSA has included provisions related to corporate criminal liability in their legal system. There are many provisions related to criminal liability in the KSA; however, they are not confined to general criminal law but are scattered over a plethora of statutes with specific provisions, such as the CL’15 and the ABL’92.

Corporations can commit the same offences as natural persons. Given, however, the fact that governments rely on them for the economic development of their countries, the question of how to regulate corporate behaviour becomes highly complicated due to intrigues and conspiracies elaborated by the elite networks of strong multinational corporations.^[709] As a result, many perpetrators of corporate crimes often believe they will not be detected.^[710]

Corporate criminal liability is one of the significant tools governments can use to prevent corporate crimes.^[711] By imposing corporate criminal liability by adopting legislative, judicial, administrative or other effective measures, each government can tackle this growing problem. Inter­national cooperation should be enhanced to ensure that an integrated and concerted effort is made by States to eradicate this crime.

Corporate crime is still an obscure subject, especially in the KSA. Moreover, there are neither exact statistics that reflect corporate crime rates, nor official data that has been gathered in the KSA on the harm and cost caused by corporate crime. Thus, more qualitative and quantitative analyses of corporate crime are needed in the KSA.

9.