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Desperately fighting corporate crimes
Carrying out overseas punishment might become more complicated when dealing with corporations that have put their money in tax heaven countries. Remember the Panama papers case?
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The building that the Mossack Fonseca law firm sits in, in Panama City. (Associated Press/Arnulfo Franco)
I
ndonesia has been regulating criminal liability for corporate entities since the implementation of Emergency Act No. 7/ 1955 on Economic Criminal Offenses, although the very first technical statutory provision in this legal area was only enacted at the end of last December by the Supreme Court.
So it is no wonder that during this time, innumerable criminal cases involving corporate entities have rarely seemed to penalize the corporation itself.
First of all, a big thanks to the Supreme Court for their remarkable initiative so that law enforcers will have a clearer understanding of how to investigate, prosecute and execute sentences imposed on companies that have committed crimes.
However, a clearer understanding doesn’t mean this is good enough, rather, it is only just better than nothing.
My colleague Ricky Pratomo has comprehensively and rigorously explained (The Jakarta Post March 6, 2017) that determining the nationality of a corporation is not as easy as flipping a coin, yet it’s not the only issue regarding Supreme Court regulation No. 13/2016 (SC Regulation).
The very first thing that we have to pay close attention to is the layering system of contemporary enterprises. As Ricky explained, in this modern age corporate entities can easily create layers of legal persona to avoid any legal liability.
Using such a point of view, we might easily relate to article 6 of the SC regulation.
