Criminally liable legal persons prohibited from entering into public sector contracts

Under Spanish law, any legal person convicted of a criminal offence(1) is banned from entering into contracts with the Spanish public administration.

Traditionally, this prohibition was not foreseen in the law as a criminal penalty, but rather as an administrative disqualification. However, since December 23 2010 the Criminal Code, as amended by Law 5/2010, has established the possibility of punishing legal persons which have been held liable for criminal offences with a prohibition on entering into contracts with the public administration.

This update analyses the consequences of this prohibition from a criminal and administrative law perspective.