WHAT IS COMPLIANCE AND WHY DO WE NEED IT IN OUR COMPANY?

What is the Compliance programme?

The regulatory compliance requirements is a set of procedures, protocols and good practices adopted by commercial companies to identify and classify the risks and crimes that legal persons could face, in order to establish internal mechanisms for prevention, management, control and reaction against the crimes.

The programme consists of providing the legal person with adequate and sufficient guidelines to ensure that the company develops its activities and businesses in accordance with current regulations, promoting a culture of regulatory compliance among employees, managers and agents linked to the legal entity.

These organisational and management models are the Compliance programme.

The Pérez Parras Economists & Lawyers Firm in Málaga and Nerja, offers this Compliance or regulatory compliance service, providing your company with all the guarantees so that you can be exempt from criminal responsibility.

Every company must implement the Compliance programme

Why does our company need it?

The legislative environment in which the company develops its activities is increasingly ample and complex.

The amendment of article 31 bis of the Criminal Code, whose entry into force was July 1st, 2015, made a new provision:

Legal persons can be criminally responsible for crimes committed by managers and employees working in the company for failure of adopting a control and monitoring programme for regulatory compliance.

This means that in addition to declaring the person who committed the crime responsible, the legal person will also be held criminally responsible for not having adopted regulatory compliance measures.

Taking human error into account, the legal entity will more likely lose due to the actions of its employees. But, what happens, if it can be demonstrated that, despite the mistake made by the worker, the company had applied Compliance and all its mechanisms for crime prevention and detection? The Organic Law 1/2015 specifies that, in this case, the employer is exempt from criminal responsibility.

Therefore, the Compliance advisory service signifies developing your business so that all risks are covered. 

Article 31 bis of the Criminal Code

Article 31 bis of the Criminal Code establishes the criminal responsibility of commercial companies and legal persons in general.

Some of the sanctions could be:

a) Fines of up to 9 million euros, depending on the benefit obtained.

b) Dissolution of the legal entity. The dissolution will result in the definitive loss of the legal entity, as well as that of its ability to act in any way in the legal traffic, or to carry out any kind of activity, even if it is lawful.

c) Suspension of its legal persons’ activities, up to five years.

d) Closure of premises and establishments, up to five years.

e) Prohibition of carrying out, in the future, the activities in which the crime was committed, favoured or concealed. This prohibition may be temporary or definitive. If it is temporary, the term may not exceed fifteen years.

f) Disqualification to obtain subsidies and public aid, to contract with the public sector and to enjoy benefits and tax incentives or Social Security, for a term that may not exceed fifteen years.

g) Judicial intervention to safeguard the rights of workers or creditors for the time deemed necessary, which may not exceed five years.

Consequently, the Compliance or regulatory compliance programme is now a necessity and obligation in the companies, associations and foundations of this country, because of modifying the previous criterion of considering that only natural persons could commit a crime and be held responsible.

What advantages does it have?

-To avoid criminal convictions to the legal entity, as well as to the corporate officers.

-To avoid judicial sanctions for the commission of crimes and to avoid administrative sanctions.

– It contributes to the proper functioning of the markets.

-Best reputation and competitiveness for the legal entity.

-To avoid internal fraud or greater control of the organisation.

– It serves as a differentiation regarding the rest of the companies that do not implement it; also, it gives added value with respect to the competition.

Finally, our expert staff at Pérez Parras Economists & Lawyers hope that this information is of interest to you. Do not hesitate to consult our office of Economists & Lawyers in Malaga and Nerja if you intend to implement the Compliance or regulatory compliance service.