Part 2.5 Corporate criminal responsibility

Part 2.5 states general principles of corporate criminal responsibility to govern the great majority of criminal offences. It will not cover all offences however. Part 2.5 is displaced, in a number of instances, by special provisions for attributing physical or fault elements of particular offences to corporations. So, for example, the Trade Practices Act 1974, Part XIC – Telecommunications access regime, which contains a number of offences, concludes with s152EO, which supplants the provisions of Part 2.5 of the Code. So also in offences against the Ozone Protection Act 1989.357 The principles of Chapter 2 of the Code will apply elsewhere, however, unless displaced by specific legislation.

To avoid unnecessary repetition, references to corporate “employees, agents or officers” have been abbreviated, where appropriate, to “agents”.