Corporate Bodies and Guilty Minds: The Failure of Corporate Criminal Liability / Edition 1

by William S. Laufer

Overview

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 policymakers and legal minds alike.
 

“[This] timely work offers a dispassionate analysis of problems relating to corporate crime.”—Harvard Law Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226470405
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	08/01/2006
Edition description:	1
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I. The Law’s Ambivalence
1. The Evolution of Corporate Criminal Law
2. Recognizing Personhood
3. Constructing Fault

Part II. The Law’s Status Quo
4. Playing Games
5. Shifting Blame
6. Crafting a Soul
7. Making and Unmaking the Pessimist’s Account
 
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

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.”

Harvard Law Review