Abstract

This article analyses the issue of criminal law consequences for causing depletion of a subsidiary’s assets. It concerns exclusively such cases of depletion of a company’s assets which have been caused by the adoption and implementation of business decisions determined by the relationship of subordination. The fear of criminal liability felt by members of a subsidiary’s board of management is usually accompanied by the conviction that the decisions they make are “legal” and constitute fulfilment of obligations arising from their responsibility to deal with the property matters of the company in the factual and legal context determined by the relationship of subordination. Finding the above business practice generally forbidden by the criminal law and a potential source of criminal liability would be hardly acceptable or even absurd. A more thorough analysis of the normative structures encoded in the provisions of Art. 296 of the Criminal Code allows to avoid such businesswise inadequate consequences.