Corporate Criminal Liability - Clarke et al.
Michael E. Clarke et al.
There's a basic principle: companies are persons but they are not people and only people can form the intent to commit crime, therefore companies cannot be prosecuted.
It is often said that it's the exception that proves the rule and in some 1500 pages, this book lists the exceptions, the policies that provide those exceptions and explanations as to how companies are held to account in an array of approaches that, federally and in states, the US legal system has eroded that basic principle.
But the world of law never stands still for long and many of the most recent policies were driven by the government of President Joe Biden. And almost at the same time as the book came out, Biden was pushed off into the wilderness. Trump, one has to feel, is likely to repeal, revoke or not bring into force some of the measures described by Clarke in his introduction.
It is a book which demands reading, pencil in hand, to mark the important passages - but then it turns out that almost every page is marked.
The two volumes cover everything from tax evasion to bribery, describing cases, the arguments and the decisions. It should be a dry law book but it isn't. In fact, it's extremely readable.
That said, as a reference book, it's so big that one needs to know what to look for before it can be found.
This is a work for people who already have a working knowledge of the topic and of the broader subject, or for those who know next to nothing but have the time to read it cover to cover to learn.
But it's important in relation to trade-based financial crime because while those with a simple view think that's all about money laundering, people that know their stuff know that it's about the conduct by companies in far more than money laundering per se.
It's not bedtime reading, in part because the book is so big it will hurt if you fall asleep and it hits you in the face. But it is an important part of the structure upon which financial crime risk and compliance is built.
Also, even though the book is US specific, it is far from exclusive to the USA: the approaches set out in the book are used, or are proposed, in other jurisdictions. The USA, so often behind the rest of the world in relation to financial crime laws and regulations might just, this time, be ahead by a nose.
