Imposing Corporate Death Penalty In Indonesia: A Discourse On Penalisation, Corporate Culture, And Deferred Prosecution Agreement

The Indonesian Penal Code 2023 regulatescorporate criminal liability.Itcovers variousissues,including the actions of acorporationthat amount to corporatecrimes, the conditions under whicha corporationcan be held criminally responsible, who can be held accountable, and the typesof criminal sanctions imposed on corporations. The primary criminal sanction is the imposition offines. However, several types of additional punishmentsmay alsobe imposed, including dissolution of the corporation or, in other words, the “corporate death penalty”, which leads to a permanent terminationof the corporation's operations, loss of jobs foremployees, terminationof production, and stoppage oftaxpayments to the government. Thus, if imposed without caution, corporate deathpenalty will negatively impact the state and society. This article analyses the effect of corporate death penalty on the societyand highlights the need forjudges toexercise cautionbeforedissolving a corporation. The studyapplies normative legal research with thestatutory and comparative approach.Primary and secondary legal materialswere analysed. This article argues against the imposition of corporate death penaltyinIndonesia for three reasons. First, Indonesia does not have sentencing guidelines for corporations. Second, Indonesia has not developed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) mechanism yet, which is an obstacle to developinga better corporate culture. Third, corporate death penalty has harmful impacts on acountry's economy and public welfare;among others, it increasesthe unemployment rate, which impacts social life.