LEGISLATION ACT 2001 - SECT 161 Corporations liable to offences

LEGISLATION ACT 2001 - SECT 161

    (1)     A provision of a law that creates an offence (whether indictable or summary) applies to corporations as well as to individuals.

    (2)     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.

    (3)     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—

        (a)     if the period of imprisonment is not longer than 6 months—50 penalty units; and

        (b)     if the period of imprisonment is longer than 6 months but not longer than 1 year—100 penalty units; and

        (c)     if the period of imprisonment is longer than 1 year but not longer than 2 years—200 penalty units; and

        (d)     if the period of imprisonment is longer than 2 years but not longer than 5 years—500 penalty units; and

        (e)     if the period of imprisonment is longer than 5 years but not longer than 10 years—1 000 penalty units; and

        (f)     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.

    (4)     In this section:

"law" means an Act, subordinate law or disallowable instrument.