As stated doctrine, jurisprudence and international law in the case, it is argued that any person holding individual rights, may be taxable moral damage or injury. Similarly it can be said that legal persons or ideal existence can suffer grievances and collective entity that owns certain assets very personal, of course, excluding those rights arising in relations born, the site in the family, and you are depriving people of visible existence (1).

In the office of one of the committees of the "2nd Jornadas Sanjuaninas of Civil Law" (Argentina) said that: "... the people of ideal existence, when suffering an attributes or budgets of their legal status, are entitled to claim compensation for moral damages suffered ... "(2). The truth is that, it is conceivable that people of ideal existence may suffer this type of injury since the same addition to their "economic assets" are subjective rights holders other, making up what is called "moral heritage" , which has an objective content irrespective of the "feel or want" of the holder (3).

Any legal person, interacting through their bodies that govern, administer and represent, with the particularity that celebrates acts must be framed within the objective set out in its charter and special laws of matter (4). We clarify that the term "representation" is used for external relations, ie the links of the legal entity with the third (5). The trend is to ensure a third certainty as to their relationship with the legal entity, allowing those acts performed attributable to the Company and the same way that the damage to that representative will be a legal person.

In the situation of legal persons, there is an apparent inability to act otherwise than through individuals (6). Similarly, factors, administrators and representatives, in the discharge of their duties as such, must act with "loyalty and diligence of a good businessman" (7).

Bibliography

(1) MOISSET DE ESPANÉS, Luis., Daño moral y personas jurídicas, Zeus Córdoba, 1985, T.4, p.134 (Sección comentarios a fallos)

(2) BREBBIA, Roberto H., La lesión del patrimonio moral, Ed. La Rocca, Bs As, 2000, Primera Parte, p.251 y ss.

(3) ORGAZ, Alfredo., El Daño Resarcible, Ed. Bibliográfica Ameba, Bs As, 1960, p. 221 y ss.

(4) RICHARD Hugo, E. y MUIÑO Orlando M., Derecho Societario, Ed. Astrea, Bs.As, 2000, p. 210

(5) GHERSI Carlos A, Teoría general de la reparación de los daños, Ed. Astrea 1997, §. 104, p.211 y ss

(6) LOPEZ DE ZAVALIA, Teoría de los Contratos. Ed. Zavalía, Bs As., 1984, Parte general, p. 308 y ss

(7) RICHARD, Efraín H y ORLANDO Manuel M., Derecho Societario, Ed. Astrea, Bs As. 2000, § 112 p. 229 y ss.

if one turns to the case law of the European Court on Human rights in Strasbourg, it becomes quite clear that even though corporations/undertakings enjoy the protection of human rights, the standards of protection are different. For example, in assessing proportionality, the EctR in Strasbourg might allow public measures which effect a higher degree of interference with a right enjoyed by an undertakings, as compared to interference with the same right enjoyed by an individual human being. In particular in case of a right like protection of privacy, the ECtHR will differentiate between individual human beings and undertakings as regards the effective level of protection of the same human right.

For more detail with regard to inspections under EU Competition law see, Weiß, Human rights and EU antitrust enforcement: news from Lisbon, European Competition Law Review 2011, issue 4, pp. 186-195

or generally A Andreangeli, Human Rights and Competition Law.

Of course Corporations are not people, although they are persons. Here in Brazil, their right to privacy is treated by the Courts according to their nature, as an aspect of "industrial or market secret".

Hi Emanuela, your question is indeed an intriguing one. I am both a Lawyer and a professor of Business Ethics so was struck by the dual nature of your question; it is both a moral inquiry and a legal inquiry. Nonetheless, I choose NOT to approach the question as a matter of law. I take solace in concentrating on the ethical aspects of the question from the fact that you phrased your question in terms of “should”. Of course, what “should be” (normative inquiry) and what “is” (descriptive inquiry) are two different things. I choose to believe that you are not interested in the state of the law in the U.S. (or, for that matter, in emerging “European Law” under the auspices of the European Court of Human Rights). Since, these are the only two sources of law with which I can speak with any amount of expertise, please consider my discounting the relevance of law in the instant inquiry as being based upon my knowledge of those specific pieces of positive law.

With those provisos, my answer is “ABSOLUTELY NOT.” Corporations are not natural persons, rather they are a creation of the state, which means they are a creation of the people. They exist for the betterment of the general welfare of the populace in the jurisdictions in which they have been licensed to operate. There is no other justifiable reason for corporations to be allowed the privileges of (1) endowing their owners with limited liability, (2) existing in perpetuity (i.e., perpetual existence), and (3) financing their operations with other people’s money (whether accomplished through issuance of stock or floating of bonds). For these privileges, the public is entitled to extract from corporations certain obligations, such as corporate moral obligation (CMO). And, if nothing else, CMO entails not claiming “rights” that were never intended for artificial entities. Certainly, a corporation does not have the right to privacy where granting it such a right would allow it to file a lawsuit against a former employee who has blown the whistle on wrongdoing within the corporation – wrongdoing that an employee has become aware of because of insider status. Indeed, such retaliatory measures against whistle-blowing employees are the main tools in the tool chest of the corporate lawyers who represent major corporations. (Of course, these kind of violation-of-privacy lawsuits may be peculiar to the U.S. – the most litigious nation in the world and the place where private lawsuits are a lucrative source of wealth and a tried-and-true source of terroristic threats against one’s fellowman.)

In short, aside from protecting copyrighted, trademarked, patented and similar corporate assets through the use of privacy claims, corporations should NOT be allowed to assert claims of violation of privacy. Incidentally, I introduced “CMO” in the following conference paper: "These are Our Corporate Values; This is What We Stand For: Moving Beyond Stakeholder Theory," 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Boston, MA. Regular Session on Sociology of Law, August 1 - 4, 2008. (I will upload it on RG, but it is also available at < http://research.allacademic.com>.)

Moreover, the highly respected Chief Executive Officer of American Express, Kenneth Chenault also recognizes a “social compact” in which society permits the corporation to exist because it contributes to the common good: “A socially responsible company strives to meet a standard that’s higher than the bottom line.... We must remember that corporations exist because society says they can — and society assumes that we’ll contribute to the common good. That’s the bargain we strike.” (Chenault, Commentary 2006). See also the United Nations, “Global Compact.”

Gwen

Prof. Gwendolyn Alexis, your approach does remind me Duguit's "social function" doctrine, when you say that corporations "exist for the betterment of the general welfare of the populace in the jurisdictions in which they have been licensed to operate. There is no other justifiable reason for corporations to be allowed the privileges of (1) endowing their owners with limited liability, (2) existing in perpetuity (i.e., perpetual existence), and (3) financing their operations with other people’s money (whether accomplished through issuance of stock or floating of bonds)". Courts here, mainly Supremo Tribunal Federal (almost an equivalent of U. S. Supreme Court), use to treat many "rights" intended for natural people as if they were directed to corporations too.

Hi Ricardo (or do you use Antonio?), thank you for the mention of Leon Duguit; and you are indeed correct that my approach is similar to his “social function” doctrine. This is because, as a sociologist, I draw heavily on Emile Durkheim who was a colleague of Duguit’s at the University of Bordeaux. Indeed, it has been said that Duguit was influenced by Durkheim’s THE DIVISION OF LABOR IN SOCIETY in which Durkheim expounds on the concept of social solidarity. I am also a fan of Amitai Etzioni (the father of “Communitarianism”).

Hence, I think that higher courts (such as the U.S. Supreme Court or the Supremo Tribunal Federal) charged with interpreting the laws of the land should put aside the state’s self-interested concerns such as advancing the national economy and likewise should not consider it their function to protect the commercial sector vis-à-vis demands from civil society, rather these tribunals should interpret laws so as to further the general welfare of the public at large: “…Duguit’s thought, based as it is on objective law whose content is determined by the needs of social solidarity casts the state, specifically those individuals charged with the legislative, administrative and judicial functions, in the role of guardians of the general interest, and not as arbitrators between competing claims of individuals and groups based on their particular subjective rights.” (Martin A. Rogoff, BOOK REVIEW of The Individual, the Community, the State, and Law: The Contemporary Relevance of the Legal Philosophy of Leon Duguit, 7 Colum. J. Eur.L. 477, Fall 2001.)

Gwen

Everyone calls me Ricardo. Well, you can see that higher courts have strong liberal roots - "liberal" into a smithian sense -, and although Duguit has died in 1929, his theories still put them a little "afraid", for his conceptions on social solidarity led him necessarily, as we can see in the first volume of the last edition of his "Traité de Droit Constitutionnel"(1930), to deny even the existence of subjective right.

In the case of an individual citizen, the entire concept of 'right to privacy' is to protect him from State oppression. In the case of a Corporation according such a right would actually tantamount to breach of trust of the investors and the general public.

Accountability and transparency to the extent law requires can only be obtained when the right to privacy of a corporation is not absolute. Un-bridled privacy of a corporation is also a source for corruption in public life!!

Ditto and Amen, Srinivasan!

Gwen

A perspective from the US:

The most recent Supreme Court decision concerned AT&T - does AT&T have a right to privacy of what it called "personal information" in the face of the government requesting documents under the FIOA (Freedom of Information Act)?

No. In an unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that personal privacy is a not a right of corporations. AT&T, as a legally-constructed person, had to had over documents that people would not have had to hand over. "Personal information" does not mean information sensitive to legally-contracted persons, only human people.

This decision is consistent with the much-discussed Citizens United decision establishing corporate personhood.

There's a good excerpt from the AT&T decision here (it was a bit long to cut and paste, but it's well worth reading):

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/corporations-dont-have-privacy-rights/

Here's a summary of the jurisprudence on corporations and privacy:

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/events/mslsc/pollman.pdf

No, corporations have no right of privacy in the same way that real people do. The reason corporations were given legal personage in the first instance was to protect the people within them, not the corporation itself. Saloman v Saloman & Co Ltd. [1897]

This kind of legal personage cannot extend the same rights as to people or it would be impossible to close a company down. They would effectively enjoy the right to life as in Article 2 ECHR. Since that would be absurd and defeat the purpose of Ltd liability it is reasonable to hold that the right to privacy, Article 8 ECHR ( a qualified right) does not apply to corporations either.

Corporations can of course have secrets and can expect a duty of confidentiality from their employees but that cannot extend to being a fundamental right and the public interest must be allowed to overrule corporate privacy.

Corporations share one particular feature with other legal personages that live eat and breath, they do wrong. When that happens in people they lose the right to privacy and so should corporations.