“A corporation is an abstraction. It has no mind of its own any more than it has a body of its own; its active and directing will must consequently be sought in the person of somebody who for some purposes may be called an agent, but who is really the directing mind and will of the corporation, the very ego and centre of the personality of the corporation.” [Viscount Haldane LC in Lennard’s Carrying Co Ltd v Asiatic Petroleum Co Ltd [1915] AC 705].
In light of this statement, critically consider the extent to which the common law of England and Wales enables the mental state of a person to be attributed to a company for the purposes of corporate criminal or civil liability.
