Corporate Bodies and Guilty Minds – The Falure of Corporate Criminal Liability: The Failure of Corporate Criminal Liability - Hardcover

Laufer, William S

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226470407 ISBN 13: 9780226470405

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Synopsis

We live in an era defined by corporate greed and malfeasance - one in which unprecedented accounting frauds and failures of compliance run rampant. In order to calm investor fears, revive perceptions of legitimacy in markets, and demonstrate the resolve of state and federal regulators, a host of reforms, high-profile investigations, and symbolic prosecutions have been conducted in response. But are they enough?In this timely work, William S. Laufer argues that even with recent legal reforms, corporate criminal law continues to be ineffective. As evidence, Laufer considers the failure of courts and legislatures to fashion liability rules that fairly attribute blame for organizations. He analyzes the games that corporations play to deflect criminal responsibility. And he also demonstrates how the exchange of cooperation for prosecutorial leniency and amnesty belies true law enforcement. But none of these factors, according to Laufer, trumps the fact that there is no single constituency or interest group that strongly and consistently advocates the importance and priority of corporate criminal liability. In the absence of a new standard of corporate liability, the power of regulators to keep corporate abuses in check will remain insufficient.A necessary corrective to our current climate of graft and greed, "Corporate Bodies and Guilty Minds" will be essential to policy makers and legal minds alike.

About this title

Review:

"Laufer's critique of modern corporate criminal liability begins with a fascinating account of the development of corporate criminal law in the United States. . . . [This] timely work offers a dispassionate analysis of problems relating to corporate crime."

-- (10/11/2007)

About the Author:

William S. Laufer is director of the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research and the Julian Aresty Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also professor of legal studies and business ethics, sociology, and criminology.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0226470407
• ISBN 13: 9780226470405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216