Criminal Code Act 1995

A person commits an offence if:

the person:

makes, alters, destroys or conceals an accounting document; or

fails to make or alter an accounting document that the person is under a duty, under a law of the Commonwealth, a State or Territory or at common law, to make or alter; and

the person intended the making, alteration, destruction or concealment of the document (or the failure to make or alter the document) to facilitate, conceal or disguise the occurrence of one or more of the following:

the person receiving a benefit that is not legitimately due to the person;

the person giving a benefit that is not legitimately due to the recipient, or intended recipient, of the benefit;

another person receiving a benefit that is not legitimately due to the other person;

another person giving a benefit that is not legitimately due to the recipient, or intended recipient, of the benefit (who may be the first‑mentioned person);

loss to another person that is not legitimately incurred by the other person; and

one or more of the circumstances referred to in subsection (2) applies.

For the purposes of paragraph (1)(c) of this section or paragraph 490.2(1)(c), the circumstances are:

the person is:

a constitutional corporation, or a corporation that is incorporated in a Territory; or

an officer or employee of a constitutional corporation acting in the performance of his or her duties or the carrying out of his or her functions; or

a person engaged to provide services to a constitutional corporation and acting in the course of providing those services; or

a Commonwealth public official acting in the performance of his or her duties or the carrying out of his or her functions; or

the person’s act or omission referred to in paragraph (1)(a):

occurs in a Territory; or

occurs outside Australia; or

concerns matters or things outside Australia; or

facilitates or conceals the commission of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth; or

the accounting document:

is outside Australia; or

is in a Territory; or

is kept under or for the purposes of a law of the Commonwealth; or

is kept to record the receipt or use of Australian currency.

Absolute liability applies to paragraph (1)(c).

For absolute liability, see section 6.2.

An offence against this section committed by an individual is punishable on conviction by imprisonment for not more than 10 years, a fine not more than 10,000 penalty units, or both.

An offence against this section committed by a body corporate is punishable on conviction by a fine not more than the greatest of the following:

100,000 penalty units;

if the court can determine the value of the benefit that the body corporate, and any body corporate related to the body corporate, have obtained directly or indirectly and that is reasonably attributable to the conduct constituting the offence—3 times the value of that benefit;

if the court cannot determine the value of that benefit—10% of the annual turnover of the body corporate during the period (the turnover period) of 12 months ending at the end of the month in which the conduct constituting the offence occurred.