Crimes Act 1914

Part IA - General  

SECTION 4B   Pecuniary penalties - natural persons and bodies corporate  

(1)    
A provision of a law of the Commonwealth relating to indictable offences or summary offences shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be deemed to refer to bodies corporate as well as to natural persons.

(2)    
Where a natural person is convicted of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth punishable by imprisonment only, the court may, if the contrary intention does not appear and the court thinks it appropriate in all the circumstances of the case, impose, instead of, or in addition to, a penalty of imprisonment, a pecuniary penalty not exceeding the number of penalty units calculated using the formula:

Term of Imprisonment x 5

where:

Term of Imprisonment
is the maximum term of imprisonment, expressed in months, by which the offence is punishable.

(2A)    
Where a natural person is convicted of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth in respect of which a court may impose a penalty of imprisonment for life, the court may, if the contrary intention does not appear and the court thinks it appropriate in all the circumstances of the case, impose, instead of, or in addition to, a penalty of imprisonment, a pecuniary penalty not exceeding 2,000 penalty units.

(3)    
Where a body corporate is convicted of an offence against a law of the Commonwealth, the court may, if the contrary intention does not appear and the court thinks fit, impose a pecuniary penalty not exceeding an amount equal to 5 times the amount of the maximum pecuniary penalty that could be imposed by the court on a natural person convicted of the same offence.

(3A)    
Where an Act (whether enacted before or after the commencement of this subsection) confers power to make an instrument (including rules, regulations or by-laws but not including a law of a Territory) and specifies the maximum pecuniary penalty that can be imposed for offences created by such an instrument, then:

(a) unless the contrary intention appears, the specified penalty is taken to be the maximum penalty that the instrument can prescribe for such offences by natural persons; and

(b) where a body corporate is convicted of such an offence - the specifying of that penalty is not to be treated as an indication of a contrary intention for the purposes of applying subsection (3).

(4)    
Where under a law of the Commonwealth any forfeiture, penalty or reparation is paid to a person aggrieved, it is payable to a body corporate where the body corporate is the person aggrieved.