Artificial Legal Entities: Essays on Legal Agency and Liability

The monograph seeks to answer the questions of how juristic persons—as artificial legal entities with no distinct intellect or will of their own—can perform legal acts (i.e. engage in legal conduct) and in what way they can become legally liable (not only for their conduct). To develop these issues, the monograph explores the concept of a juristic person and this person’s legal acts from a general jurisprudential point of view, then from the perspective of fundamental rights, and finally from the viewpoint of contemporary law, with a particular emphasis on Czech law. The book addresses juristic persons’ legal acts not only in relation to substantive law, but also in respect of procedural rules that enable these persons to perform acts in civil proceedings. Several sections of the monograph deal with issues of liability and responsibility of juristic persons while analysing their “no-fault” and “fault-based” liability. The monograph also introduces a novel approach to vicarious liability of juristic persons. Finally, it explores juristic persons’ liability for administrative offences.