The recent developments in European and Italian case law regarding ne bis in idem have focused the
attention on cases where, for the same violation, two sanctions would follow. The first sanction would
be imposed on the individual while the second sanction on a legal entity of which the individual is an
agent. The ECtHR has solved the problem by concluding that the legal entity and its agent are not
the same person, while the ECJ has agreed with this solution. However, this solution is contradictory
with the principle that identifies the actions of the legal entity with the ones of its physical agent. This
is the cardinal rule on which corporate liability rests on both the UK and continental Europe. The
problem first emerged in the UK and in other common law country for those crimes which require a
certain mens rea. The best solution is neither in discarding the identification principle nor in
establishing that the legal entity and its agent are two different legal actors, but rather in identifying
liability criteria specifically tailored to the legal entity. In this way, both the prohibition against bis
in idem and the culpability principle would be respected.