Criminal Liability of Managers for Excessive Risk-Taking?

The thesis analyses and evaluates the criminalisation of excessively risky decisions taken by managers of limited liability companies. The potentially disastrous consequences of excessive risk-taking were powerfully highlighted by the most recent financial crunch, although its dangers are not limited to the times of economic crisis. In the same time risk taking is at the very beginning and at the very core of business activity. By criminalising managers’ excessive risk-taking criminal law enters a sphere, which is at the core of the activity it affects. This research examines the regulation of these selected legal orders, in which excessive risk-taking by managers is criminalised (England & Wales, Germany and France). It is followed by a more in-depth reflection on the role of criminal law in punishing acts of mismanagement, which consist in exposure to excessive risk. This reflection takes a perspective of basic theories of criminalisation and ethical problems inherent to the topic, as well as the interference with other branches of law regulating corporate environment. It demonstrates that it is justified to criminalise excessive risk-taking to a certain extent. It formulates a blueprint how to design criminalisation of such acts taking into account the factual and legal background within which such a criminalisation would have to be fitted. This proposal might serve the national legislator as well as potentially the European one