Respondeat superior

"Most histories of American corporate criminal liability start there - the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the regulatory state, and the Supreme Court’s
landmark 1909 decision in New York Central & Hudson River Railroad v. United States. In New York Central, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the
Elkins Act, a federal statute regulating railway rates that imposed criminal liability on corporations that violated the statute’s mandates. In sweeping
language, the Court rejected the corporation’s contention that, as an entity, it could not commit a crime, finding Congress had expansive power to regulate
interstate commerce that included the authority to impose criminal sanctions.

The Court was untroubled by the legal fiction that an entity could neither take criminal action nor possess criminal intent. Instead, the Court adopted the civil
law doctrine of respondeat superior, holding that a corporation could constitutionally be convicted of a crime when one of its agents had committed a criminal act (1) within the scope of his or her employment, and (2) for the benefit of the corporation. That standard remains good law to this day." (*)

Più ci penso, e più mi convinco che nella prossima vita sarò un giurista. Anche.

(*) Diskant, Edward B. "Comparative corporate criminal liability: Exploring the uniquely American doctrine through comparative criminal procedure." The Yale Law Journal (2008): 126-176.