Corporations liable to offences
161 Corporations liable to offences
A provision of a law that creates an offence (whether indictable or summary) applies to corporations as well as to individuals.
A provision of a law that creates an offence can apply to a corporation even though contravention of the provision is punishable by imprisonment (with or without another penalty).
Example
A provision of an Act contains the following penalty:
‘Maximum penalty: 100 penalty units, imprisonment for 1 year or both.’
The provision can apply to a corporation.
If a corporation is convicted of an offence and, apart from this subsection, the penalty for the offence is a period of imprisonment only, the court may impose a maximum penalty of—
if the period of imprisonment is not longer than 6 months—50 penalty units; and
if the period of imprisonment is longer than 6 months but not longer than 1 year—100 penalty units; and
if the period of imprisonment is longer than 1 year but not longer than 2 years—200 penalty units; and
if the period of imprisonment is longer than 2 years but not longer than 5 years—500 penalty units; and
if the period of imprisonment is longer than 5 years but not longer than 10 years—1 000 penalty units; and
if the period of imprisonment is longer than 10 years—1 500 penalty units.
Note Section 133 explains the meaning and value of penalty units.
In this section:
law means an Act, subordinate law or disallowable instrument.
This Act’s bill:Explanatory statementSecond reading speech
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