ESG Compliance with Criminal Coverage Lawyers

ESG and Criminal Liability

The intersection between ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) and criminal law is the great frontier of corporate compliance from 2026 onwards. The CSDDD Directive (EU 2024/1760) imposes on large companies the obligation of human rights and environmental due diligence throughout their entire value chain.

CSDDD Directive

Following its amendment by Directive (EU) 2026/470, CSDDD applies to EU companies with at least 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion net worldwide turnover, which must identify and assess adverse human rights and environmental impacts; prevent and mitigate risks in own operations and value chain; establish a complaint channel accessible to affected third parties; report annually. The maximum fine is capped at 3% of net worldwide turnover. Member States must transpose it by 26 July 2028 and apply it from 26 July 2029.

Criminal Typologies

• Workers' rights offences (Arts. 311-318 CP).
• Environmental offences (Arts. 325-331 CP).
• Urban planning offences (Art. 319 CP).
• Crimes against flora and fauna (Arts. 332-336 CP) and animal welfare offences (Art. 340 bis CP).
• Advertising offence (Art. 282 CP): Greenwashing with false ESG claims.
• Account falsification (Art. 290 CP): False ESG metrics in annual accounts.

Greenwashing

Advertising non-verified ESG credentials constitutes an advertising offence of Art. 282 CP when it may cause serious and manifest harm to consumers. If ESG reporting forms part of annual accounts or non-financial information statements, falsified metrics capable of causing economic harm may trigger the falsification offence of Art. 290 CP, which does not give rise to the company's criminal liability.

Art. 31 bis Integration

The Art. 31 bis CP prevention model must be expanded to include specific ESG controls: country risk map, enhanced due diligence on high-risk suppliers, stakeholder-accessible whistleblower channel, specific training for sustainability and procurement teams, and periodic external audit testing. The exemption can only be invoked for offences that give rise to the legal person's liability (environmental, urban planning, misleading advertising, corruption or trafficking, among others); it does not arise for offences against workers' rights (Arts. 311-317 CP), where the directors or managers are liable and Art. 129 consequences may apply (Art. 318), or for falsification of accounts (Art. 290).

The six requirements of an effective model applied to ESG risk (Art. 31 bis 5 CP)

For an organisation and management model to operate as a cause of exemption from the criminal liability of the legal entity (partial proof only mitigates), Article 31 bis 5 of the Criminal Code requires six cumulative conditions, all of which must be projected onto environmental, social and governance risks. The first is identifying the activities in whose scope the offences to be prevented may be committed: in ESG terms, this means mapping the processes exposed to environmental offences, offences against workers' rights, corruption, and risks arising from the supply chain. The risk map is not a static document but the technical foundation on which the entire model is built.

The remaining requirements link that diagnosis to verifiable measures. The model must establish protocols specifying how the entity forms its will and adopts and executes decisions; financial-resource management models adequate to prevent the offences; a channel allowing risks and breaches to be reported to the oversight body; a disciplinary system that adequately sanctions non-compliance with the measures; and periodic verification of the model itself, with its amendment whenever relevant breaches come to light or the organisation or activity changes. A model that does not translate into effective training, an applied disciplinary regime and coherent internal communication risks being reduced to a merely documentary programme, lacking the effectiveness the provision demands.

Translating these requirements to the ESG sphere calls for technical rigour. A declaration of sustainable principles is not enough: the model must contain concrete controls over discharges and waste, over contracting with suppliers in high-risk jurisdictions, over gifts and hospitality offered to public officials, and over the subcontracting of labour. Effectiveness is measured by the traceability of each control and by the organisation's capacity to detect, escalate and correct deviations before they crystallise into a criminal act.

The autonomous oversight body and supply-chain due diligence

Article 31 bis 2 of the Criminal Code conditions the exemption, where the offence is committed by directors or representatives, on the supervision, monitoring and control of the model having been entrusted to a body of the legal entity with autonomous powers of initiative and control. This is the institutional core of compliance: the body or officer usually referred to as the compliance function or compliance officer. Its autonomy is not nominal; it requires direct reporting to the highest management body, unfiltered access to information, adequate resources, and the impossibility of having its judgment neutralised by those who manage the areas under supervision. In smaller entities, Article 31 bis allows the management body itself to assume these supervisory functions.

In ESG matters, this body channels supply-chain due diligence. Supervision does not stop at the company's borders: it reaches supplier selection, contractual compliance clauses, second- and third-tier audits, and the response to alerts of forced labour, environmental harm or corruption in external links of the chain. The omission of this due diligence matters because the legal entity also answers, under Article 31 bis 1 b) of the Criminal Code, for listed offences committed by subordinates where there has been a serious breach of the duties of supervision, monitoring and control, taking into account the circumstances of the case.

The body's effectiveness is assessed by how it actually functions, not by the organisational chart. A compliance officer without a budget, without access to purchasing decisions, or without the capacity to halt high-risk operations will struggle to demonstrate the autonomy the provision requires. For that reason, the documentation of its activity —minutes, investigations, recommendations and their follow-up— is a central piece of evidence when the entity invokes the effectiveness of its model.

Burden of proof of the exemption and the procedural status of the investigated entity

The criminal liability of the legal entity is autonomous from that of the natural person. Article 31 ter of the Criminal Code allows the entity to answer even where the specific natural person who committed the offence has not been identified or proceedings could not be directed against them, and even where a circumstance affecting that person's culpability is appreciated. As a result, the company's defence cannot rest solely on the individual's procedural fate: it must be built around the existence and effectiveness of its own organisation and management model, adopted and executed before the offence was committed.

When the entity is investigated, it acquires its own procedural status and full rights of defence. It is entitled not to testify against itself, not to plead guilty, to legal assistance and to propose evidence, and it is required to appoint a specific representative for the criminal proceedings, who cannot be someone due to testify as a witness at trial and should preferably have no interests conflicting with those of the company. Proving the model's suitability and its effective implementation rests on the evidence the entity itself provides: the risk map, training records, channel logs, disciplinary decisions and periodic verification reports.

A guilty plea or settlement by the legal entity is possible and is governed by its own regime, independently of whether the co-accused natural persons reach one. It bears repeating that this is a system of corporate liability: it is not appropriate here to transpose a penalty scheme designed for an offence committed by a natural person (and the limitation period that applies to it is a debated question), because the entity answers under its own sanctioning regime and its own rules of attribution.

Penalties under Art. 33.7, Law 2/2023 and corporate succession (Art. 130.2 CP)

The consequences for the legal entity are specific and set out in Article 33.7 of the Criminal Code: a fine by day-units or proportional fine, dissolution of the entity, suspension of its activities, closure of premises and establishments, prohibition on carrying out in the future the activities in whose exercise the offence was committed, disqualification from obtaining public subsidies and aid, contracting with the public sector or enjoying tax or social-security benefits and incentives, and judicial intervention to safeguard the rights of workers and creditors. The severity of some of these penalties explains why an effective compliance model, capable of exempting or mitigating under Articles 31 bis and 31 quater of the Criminal Code, is a risk-management tool rather than a mere formality.

The social pillar of ESG compliance interlocks with Law 2/2023 of 20 February, which requires many organisations to implement an internal reporting system and protects those who report breaches against retaliation. That internal channel simultaneously satisfies a requirement of Article 31 bis 5 of the Criminal Code —the duty to report risks and breaches to the oversight body— and an autonomous legal obligation. A secure, confidential channel with documented follow-up of communications strengthens the model's effectiveness and provides decisive evidence if the entity comes to be investigated.

Finally, Article 130.2 of the Criminal Code prevents criminal liability from being extinguished by the transformation, merger, absorption or split of the legal entity: liability passes to the resulting entity or entities. This makes criminal-compliance due diligence a critical point in any M&A operation, since the absorbing or resulting entity inherits pre-existing criminal contingencies (and in a share purchase the acquired company keeps its own). A compliance review prior to the transaction, examining the target company's model and its latent ESG risks, is the means to identify and manage that transfer of liability before closing.