Minimum Sentences for Us, Minimal Sentences for Them
It’s come to something when the Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, responsible for overseeing the country’s federal prosecutors, doesn’t just think this way. Doesn’t just act this way. But actually feels comfortable standing up in a public forum, sharing this, and then publishing it on an official website (and h/t Naked Capitalism):
To be clear, the decision of whether to indict a corporation, defer prosecution, or decline altogether is not one that I, or anyone in the Criminal Division, take lightly. We are frequently on the receiving end of presentations from defense counsel, CEOs, and economists who argue that the collateral consequences of an indictment would be devastating for their client. In my conference room, over the years, I have heard sober predictions that a company or bank might fail if we indict, that innocent employees could lose their jobs, that entire industries may be affected, and even that global markets will feel the effects. Sometimes – though, let me stress, not always – these presentations are compelling… Those are the kinds of considerations in white collar crime cases that literally keep me up at night, and which must play a role in responsible enforcement.
I just want to be clear here. This is the man responsible for overseeing the prosecution of white-collar crime in the most powerful country on Earth, stating in a public forum that what keeps him up at night is deciding whether that lawyer or CEO from the big corporation who popped by his office to defend a crime-committing corporation made a “compelling” case that they should just drop the whole matter. The general context is a speech extolling the virtues of “non-prosecution agreements,” which are the U.S. Department of Justice’s equivalent to a letter of warning from Elections Canada
Even as right-wing governments prattle on about the virtues of minimum sentences, heavy jail terms, and various other tools of justice, they are increasingly reluctant even to impose the lightest of all possible sentences on corporate criminals and other white-collar ne’er-do-wells. Recently in Canada, for instance, the Competition Bureau announced that a company had been found guilty of rigging government bids. It paid a fine which looks to my uneducated eye to be equal to one-third of the value of the contracts it won through these means, and then was slapped with court order stating — hilariously — that the company was not allowed to break the law again.
Apparently the good folks at the Competition Bureau, like their colleagues at the American DOJ, feel that corporations need not even be obliged to follow the law unless they are specifically orderd to do so.
The politicians get their own kickbacks from this system, of course. Take the celebrated case of Toronto mayor Rob Ford. Charged with flagrantly ignoring the office-holder’s ethics code, Ford’s argument is that he need not be held guilty because he never bothered to read the code, and because his lawyer never brought it to his attention either.
Tweet
mike
“Those are the kinds of considerations in white collar crime cases that literally keep me up at night”
Consider maybe the influence required to make the evidence for over 4000 corporate criminal cases housed in building 7 disappear?
Consider it only costs 10 k to have him disappear? Or load his laptop with pedophilia?
“Sometimes – though, let me stress, not always – these presentations are compelling”….i bet they are
i’m sure those considerations are not “taken lightly”
jrkrideau
I find it interesting that the speaker is proud of not charging an American company presumably based in New York while proudly saying that he devastated a German company such as Siemens AG, based I believe, in Munich and which does not appear to have carried out any illegal activities in the USA but rather in such countries as Argentina. And gee, the US gov’t pocketed a cool $450 (plus whatever those civil fines were).
Oh and there’s a statement about Barclay’s Bank!. I’m glad that Citigroup or JPMorgan Chase never had anything to do with setting the libor.
Perhaps it’s a case of we treat our buddies who rat easily and go for the publicity when some foreign company without former classmates in Justice or otherwise in Washington, can be ambushed by USA extra-territorial law?
Sixth Estate
I suspect there’s a good bit of that, yes.
Although in fairness, they don’t exactly throw the book at foreign companies either, in most cases.
Rick Lebitschnig
If it’s so important that the companies continue to function, just toss the directors in jail and leave the business operating.
Sixth Estate
If there’s a company which absolutely cannot be allowed to fail, then leaving it in the private sector creates moral hazard and raises the likelihood of further shenanigans in the future.
jrkrideau
I must admit I did not understand why various governments involved in bailing out bands over the last few years did not do basically what Rick suggests but including firing all the top executives as well.
However it would have been better to continue on, nationalize all those financial institutions and resell them on the open market–perhaps even some kind of shares for poor people idea–something like Alberta’s heritage money payout.
Sixth Estate
It seems a fair bet that no private-sector saviour for a bankrupt bank would have been as generous as the government was.