Sentencing guidelines based on the US model for criminal and administrative penalties against associations in the European Union
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46941/2025.se1.7Keywords:
Sentencing guidelines for corporations, United States sentencing guidelines, Sentencing corporations in Austria and Germany.Abstract
Associations responsible for criminal violations are sanctioned with various sanctions in the member states of the European Union – criminal penalties or fines. These sanctions vary in severity and are enforced in different ways, as a look at Austria and Germany shows. To achieve fair and consistent sanctioning in this area, the literature repeatedly calls for to establish sentencing guidelines for corporations based on the model of the US sentencing guidelines to reduce sentencing discrepancies and promote transparency and proportionality in sentencing. This article argues that legal systems based on a statute law system are rightly should adhere to their own legal institutions and cultures. This allows for integration of the association sanctions into the respective national criminal justice systems without causing internal systemic distortions, which can lead to a lack of acceptance by the law enforcement authorities and the associations concerned.
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