Guilt and criminal liability of legal person

Common Law countries are familiar to the notion of criminal liability of moral entities within Criminal Law. However, this is not the Brazilian model, a Civil Law State. Nevertheless, since 1998 it is possible for legal entities to commit crimes, and more specifically, crimes against the environment, and to be held responsible for them, alongside with the agent who did in fact commit the crime on the moral entity's behalf. The Brazilian model is a strict liability one and to convict moral entities of crimes is a clear violation of the Constitution, which contains the culpability principle nullum crimen sine culpa. In this article, we present other models of culpability, with special emphasis on the compliance programs, so that the strict liability - unconstitutional for that matter - can be removed from the Brazilian Criminal Law.