A new model to prevent crime in businesses combines big data and socioeconomic theory
The University of Cordoba has designed the basis of a model to prevent criminal behavior at businesses if, in accordance with the possibility provided for in the Penal Code, they wish to not be held legally responsible for perpetrating certain crimes or illegal activity committed by their executives or employees.
When the National High Court indicted Neymar and Barcelona Football Club for signing the player or when the tampering of Volkswagen engines was discovered there was already a regulation in Spanish law that promoted compliance programs, a crime prevention model. So it was clearly set in the Penal Code reform under Organic Law 1/2015; if companies do not have an efficient complicance program, it is likely that they will be liable for certain crimes committed by one of their employees. The implementation and application in these models, called compliances, assumes that the business at least attempts to prevent its employees from committing crimes related to business activity, such as fraud, corruption, environmental crimes, tax evasion and so on, as happened in the Neymar case and seems to have happened in the Volkswagen case.