Liability of legal entities in East Asia and Oceania

 #Compliancekeys11

In this week’s #Compliancekeys11, we briefly outline the regulation of the liability of legal entities in the different countries that are part of Eastern Asia and Oceania.

As can be seen, the majority of countries in Eastern Asia and Oceania foresee the criminal liability of legal entities and only four countries (Bangladesh, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka) foresee the administrative liability.

It should be noted that Indonesia has recently (January 2nd) passed the Law 1/2023 which introduces the criminal liability of legal entities, a factor that could encourage the others Southeastern Asia countries mentioned above, to incorporate the criminal liability of legal entities. 

In any case, there is attached below a summary-table about the state of play:

Country	Nature of liability	Closed or open list of offenses / infractions	Legal possibility of exemption due to the availability of Compliance
Australia	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
Bangladesh	Administrative	Closed list	No
Cambodia	Criminal	Closed list	Yes (only for certain specific offenses).
China	Criminal	Closed list	Yes (only for very specific conduct, for example, in competition terms).
Hong Kong	Criminal	Closed list	No
India	Criminal	Closed list	No (only, and not very succinctly, for corruption offenses).
Indonesia	Criminal (until 2022 it was Administrative)	Open list	Yes
Japan	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
Laos	Criminal	Open list	Yes
Malaysia	Criminal	Closed list	Yes (only for certain specific offenses).
New Zealand	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
Papua New Guinea	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
Philippines	Administrative	Closed list	No
Singapore	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
South Korea	Criminal	Closed list	Yes, in specific laws.
Sri Lanka	Administrative	Closed list	No
Thailand	Criminal	Closed list	No
Taiwan	Criminal	Closed list	Yes
Vietnam	Criminal	Closed list	Yes

 

Compliance Department of Molins Defensa Penal. 

compliance@molins.eu