What has led to this important evolution of Compliance lawyers today is the emergence of another figure that comes from Anglo-Saxon law.
That figure is the compliance, also known as «corporate or regulatory compliance programs», which is a figure that consists of the creation, within the Company, of a Department that is dedicated to controlling that the Company complies with all legal regulations and that it will not commit crimes in respect of which it may be convicted on the basis of the new criminal liability.
In short, the compliance attempts to identify and reduce the risk of regulatory non-compliance, in the sense that, if the Judge considers that the Company has adopted all the means and instruments to avoid the commission of the damage, but, despite this, the damage has been committed, it could consider it exempt from criminal liability.
It is a figure that exempts Companies from criminal liability in which they may incur since 2010, as stated in Article 31 bis of the Organic Law 5/2010, of June 22.
This has even greater importance as a result of the last two reforms of the Criminal Code, on the one hand, by Law 5/2010 and, on the other hand, by the Organic Law 1/2015, of July 1 by which the exoneration is introduced, and even, it could be only the mitigating factor of the criminal liability of the legal person when it has been adopting all the control programs suitable to avoid the damage.
All companies are then obliged, as a consequence of this legal requirement, to create crime prevention programs. Within this culture of «compliance«, prevention programs are drafted to avoid economic and criminal sanctions, and even the social impact on society. This is something that produces the irruption of this figure.
However, it is important to note that regulatory compliance is not limited solely and exclusively to the field of criminal law, i.e., it is not only limited to preventing the company or its employees from committing crimes in the development of its activity, but also covers everything that comprises the legal advice of the company, for example, the environmental law, the corporate law, etc.
From LAWYOU we recommend adopting both security documents, taking into account that within the compliance system a crime prevention section can be established, thus giving greater protection to the legal entity.
In LAWYOU we help you to improve the day to day exercise of your professional activity by promoting the collaboration of legal professionals. Also, it does not lose sight of the importance that security represents for both clients and lawyers, providing the most secure applications for the management of collection and development of processes.
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