Association Responsibility Act
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Association Responsibility Act |
| Long title: | Federal law that enacts an association responsibility law and changes the media law , the food safety and consumer protection law , the patent law , the trademark protection law 1970, the semiconductor protection law , the model protection law 1990 and the utility model law |
| Abbreviation: | VbVG |
| Type: | Federal law |
| Scope: | Republic of Austria |
| Legal matter: | Other criminal law |
| Reference: | BGBl. I No. 151/2005 |
| Last change: | BGBl. I No. 26/2016 |
| Please note the note on the applicable legal version ! | |
The Austrian Association Responsibility Act ( VbVG , also Corporate Criminal Law ) codifies corporate criminal law that regulates the liability of an association for crimes committed by its decision-makers and employees if obligations that affect the association have been violated. For the makers it is more extensive than for instructions dependent or coerced acting employees ( § 3 Z.2,3 VbVG).
Association within the meaning of the VbVG
Associations within the meaning of this law are ( § 1 Z.2 VbVG):
The associations therefore include:
No associations within the meaning of the law, and therefore not subject to association responsibility, are (§ 1 Z.3 VbVG):
- the estate
- Federation , states , municipalities and other legal persons, insofar as they act in enforcement of the law
- Recognized churches , religious societies and religious denominational communities , insofar as they are active in pastoral care
Function of the statutory association responsibility
With this law, the duty of care is given priority, organizational negligence - such as in Germany - has been discarded. An association fine can be imposed, whereby "the responsibility of an association for an act and the criminal liability of decision-makers or employees due to the same act" (§ 3 Z.4 VbVG) do not exclude each other, i.e. the association as a legal person and the natural perpetrator equally to Responsibility can be held.
Constitutionality
An Upper Austrian company that was convicted in 2015 by the Vienna Criminal Court in accordance with VbVG has submitted an application for a legal review with the aim of repealing the law for being unconstitutional. On December 2, 2016, the Constitutional Court rejected the repeal of (parts of) the VbVG.
literature
- Einhard Steininger: Association responsibility law . Textbook. Linde Verlag, 2nd edition, 2018. ISBN 978-3-7073-3734-1
Web links
- Association Responsibility Act 2005, as amended , ris.bka
- Walter Fuchs, Reinhard Kreissl, Arno Pilgram, Wolfgang Stangl: General preventive effectiveness, practice and application problems of the Association Responsibility Act (VbVG). An evaluation study at the Institute for Legal and Criminal Sociology Vienna, 2011
- Christoph Herbst, Norbert Wess: The VbVG and the constitutional admissibility of the criminal liability of legal persons ZWF 2015, pp. 118–123
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Ronald Escher: Loyalty to the company up to the criminal . In: Salzburger Nachrichten . July 30, 2008, Court & Law, p. 12 .
- ↑ a b according to the Association Act 2002, Section 1, Paragraph 5, only associations for the pursuit of common interests are referred to as an association
- ↑ Renate Graber: Constitutional judges examine corporate criminal law Der Standard , March 21, 2016
- ↑ knowledge G 497 / 2015-26, G 679 / 2015-20 of the Constitutional Court, available on the Legal Information System of the Republic of Austria (RIS).