A01=William S. Laufer
accountability
accounting fraud
amnesty
Author_William S. Laufer
Category=LNCD
Category=LNV
compliance
cooperation
corporations
corruption
criminal law
criminalization
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
fault
fine
greed
investigation
investment
legal system
legitimacy
leniency
liability
malfeasance
markets
nonfiction
personhood
policy
prosecution
punishment
reform
regulation
responsibility
Product details
- ISBN 9780226470412
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Nov 2008
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
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.
