Editing Corporate crime (section)

==Definitional issues==
===Legal person===
An 1886 decision of the [[United States Supreme Court]], in ''[[Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad]]'' {{ussc|118|394|1886}}, has been cited by various courts in the US as precedent to maintaining that a corporation can be defined legally as a "person", as described in the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]]. The Fourteenth Amendment stipulates that,
{{Quote|No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.}}
In [[English law]], this was matched by the decision in ''[[Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd]]'' [1897] AC 22.
In [[Australian law]], under the ''Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)'', a corporation is legally a "person".

===Criminal capacity===
The concepts of crime and punishment, as they apply to individuals, cannot be easily transferred to the corporate domain.<ref name="Coffee 1981 p=386">{{cite journal | last=Coffee | first=John C. | title="No Soul to Damn: No Body to Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment | journal=Michigan Law Review | publisher=JSTOR | volume=79 | issue=3 | year=1981 | pages=386–459 | issn=0026-2234 | doi=10.2307/1288201 | jstor=1288201 | url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol79/iss3/7 }}</ref> International treaties governing corporate malfeasance thus tend to permit but not require corporate criminal liability. Recently a number of countries and the [[European Union]] have been working to establish corporate criminal liability for certain offences.{{Cite web |title=Liability of Legal Persons for Corruption Offences| url=https://rm.coe.int/liability-of-legal-persons/16809ef7a0 | date=2021-05-13}}
United States law currently recognizes corporate criminal capacity, although it is extremely rare for corporations to be litigated in criminal proceedings.<ref name="Klimczak Sison Prats Torres 2021">{{cite journal | last1=Klimczak | first1=Karol Marek | last2=Sison | first2=Alejo José G. | last3=Prats | first3=Maria | last4=Torres | first4=Maximilian B. | title=How to Deter Financial Misconduct if Crime Pays? | journal=Journal of Business Ethics | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | date=2021-05-06 | volume=179 | pages=205–222 | issn=0167-4544 | doi=10.1007/s10551-021-04817-0 | doi-access=free }}</ref>
French law currently recognizes corporate criminal capacity.
German law does not recognize corporate criminal capacity: German corporations are however subject to fining for administrative violations ({{lang|de|Ordnungswidrigkeiten}})

===Enforcement policy===
Corporate crime has become politically sensitive in some countries. In the [[United Kingdom]], for example, following wider publicity of fatal accidents on the rail network and at sea, the term is commonly used in reference to [[corporate manslaughter]] and to involve a more general discussion about the technological hazards posed by business enterprises (see Wells: 2001).

In the United States, the [[Sarbanes–Oxley Act|Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002]] was passed to reform business practices, including enhanced corporate responsibility, financial disclosures, and combat fraud,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sec.gov/about/laws.shtml|title=The Laws That Govern the Securities Industry|last=|first=|date=|website=|access-date=5 December 2016}}</ref> following the highly publicized and extremely harmful (to victims) scandals of [[Enron scandal|Enron]], [[WorldCom scandal|WorldCom]], [[Freddie Mac]], [[Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers|Lehman Brothers]], and [[Madoff investment scandal|Bernie Madoff]]. Company chief executive officer (CEO) and company chief financial officer (CFO) are required to personally certify financial reports to be accurate and compliant with applicable laws, with criminal penalties for willful misconduct including monetary fines up to $5,000,000 and prison sentence up to 20 years.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sec.gov/about/laws/soa2002.pdf|title=Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=107th Congress|access-date=5 December 2016}}</ref>

The Law Reform Commission of New South Wales offers an explanation of such criminal activities:{{Quote|Corporate crime poses a significant threat to the welfare of the community. Given the pervasive presence of corporations in a wide range of activities in our society, and the impact of their actions on a much wider group of people than are affected by individual action, the potential for both economic and physical harm caused by a corporation is great (Law Reform Commission of New South Wales: 2001).}}

Similarly, [[Russell Mokhiber]] and Robert Weissman (1999) assert:

{{Quote|At one level, corporations develop new technologies and [[economies of scale]]. These may serve the economic interests of mass consumers by introducing new products and more efficient methods of mass production. On another level, given the absence of political control today, corporations serve to destroy the foundations of the civic community and the lives of the people who reside in them.}}