Corruption as business practice? Criminal responsibility of enterprises in the European Union

Abstract

Using the recent Siemens case and the particularities of the German system as the starting point, this paper demonstrates how serious, useful and urgent the debate on the punishment of companies has become in the prosecution of corporate crime. the article looks beyond the existing legal situation and, looks at the policy initiatives on this field, and proposes some strategies to combat corporate crime and its different forms in the EU.

The Law and Economics of Bribery and Extortion

“…Thus, Kingdom, firms can be held criminally liable for corruption (see the sources cited above). Germany can prosecute a firm's employees or agents for bribery but not the firm itself (Hetzer 2008). both the American and the UK laws attempt to counter management's incentives to insulate itself from the profit-maximizing malfeasance of employees and agents.…”