Criminal Liability of Members of Trading Companies in the Context of the Application of the ultima ratio Principle

Abstract

The paper deals with the application of the ultima ratio principle in cases of unlawful conduct of company executive managers that fulfil the elements of property crimes, in particular the crimes of fraud and embezzlement. The paper points out that the mentioned issue is characterized by a considerable disagreement in the conditions of the Slovak Republic. The paper also indicates the inadequacy of the legal regulation de lege lata in terms of the possibility of applying the principle in question to cases in which the directors of companies commit the offenses in question in a greater than a small extent. In accordance with the current legislation, the ultima ratio principle can be applied only to misdemeanours. In other words, at the moment of fulfilling the qualifying moment of a larger extent, there is no legal basis for the application of the ultima ratio principle by the court. Based on the above-mentioned facts, the paper will try to point out the need to change the legal regulation concerning the ultima ratio principle in the conditions of the Slovak Republic, while in this connection it will also make a comparison with the legal regulation of the Czech Republic.

Keywords

• criminal law
• ultima ratio principle
• subsidiarity of criminal repression
• crimes against property
• sensu largo approach
• sensu stricto approach
• formal concept of criminal offence
• material corrective
• the slovak republic
• the czech republic