15 February 2015
Bilbao Campus
Nearly 200 students participated in the meeting on Economic Criminal Law on 12 February organised by the UD’s research team, Poder público y empresa en un contexto multinivel y transnacional The session featured the participation of expert speakers who analysed the challenges Criminal Law now faces concerning economic crimes.
The meeting was organised as two round table discussions. The first one focused on the analysis of issues involving Economic Criminal Law. This round table was formed by Criminal Law lecturers Ignacio Berdugo, Carlos Martínez-Buján and María Soledad Gil, from the universities of Salamanca, La Coruña and Deusto respectively and lecturer in Criminal Law whose contributions were a highlight of the meeting.
The round table began with Ignacio Berdugo’s explanation of the legitimacy of Criminal Law concerning socio-economic crimes, an area where the dogmatic teaching upon which nineteenth century criminal codes were based has become obsolete, calling for a revisión of a large part of the theory.
Some of these aspects of crime theory were analysed by the other speakers. Prof. Martínez-Buján analysed issues related to authorship and participation in socio-economic crimes in which different agents are involved. These cases call for the difficult task of determining with each one’s liability.
In contrast, Gil analysed the criminal liability of legal persons, summarising the different models while trying to answer questions like why and how to punish them.
The second round table focused on the analysis of certain offences. It was formed by lecturers in Criminal Law Inés Olaizola and Demelsa Benito from the universities of Navarre and Deusto, and the University of Deusto Associate Lecturer in Private International Law and president of the Basque Competition Authority, Pilar Canedo . The three speakers focused on the analysis of corrupt and disloyal practices in enterprises.
Benito offered a global overview of corruption nowadays, marked by the influence of globalization which makes its effects more destructive. Prof. Inés Olaizola analysed corruption in public procurement while particularly focusing on companies with a past history of bribery.
She explained the dynamics of certain corrupt practices in this field and she pointed out that “two people do not become corrupt if one of them is not willing”, explaining in this way that behind every civil servant accepting a bribe there is an entrepreneur willing to pay it.
Finally, lecturer Pilar Canedo analysed corrupt practices from an extra-penal point of view, focusing on the administrative field and the existing penalties for these cases. Based on the American experience, she discussed some of the difficulties posed by the penalties for these practices while also proposing some legal solutions.
