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Abstract

In Jordan, the current theory of corporate criminal accountability focuses upon the individuals who make-up an organization. However, this legal approach, known as the identification doctrine, based on individual fault assigning has its limitations. Corporations are not just individuals nor can they be reduced to their constituent human agents; rather their formation, structure, activities, policies and whole existence mark them as independent entities in their own right. The present paper provides a comparative analysis of corporate criminal liability in Jordan (a civil law jurisdiction) versus that in Australia (a common law jurisdiction). It highlights some of the key developments in the realm of the grounds upon which liability is based whereby “organizational" rather than "individual" liability is considered. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, it provides a theoretical comparative account of the problems surrounding corporate liability along with an analysis of the various bases of such liability. The second part of the paper takes a more active approach to corporate liability. It uses the notion of "corporate culture" to argue for the extension of the theory of committing an offence by an innocent or non-responsible agent so as to allow the inclusion of situations involving crimes committed by a non-autonomous employee under "economic duress" when these offences are proven to have been caused by corporate negligent manipulation of the workforce. This is crucial if the radical disparities and real autonomy of freedom of choice available across contemporary capitalistic societies are to be taken into account. For effective assignment of liability or accountability, this paper proposes basing direct corporate criminal liability on an “organizational” one; it also presents models of penal damages that maybe imposed in certain corporate crimes

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