In an op-ed published in The Hill on Friday, CPR President Rena Steinzor makes the case that in appointing a successor to Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama needs to find a prosecutor tough enough to go after corporate malfeasance with more than a series of comparatively weak deferred prosecution agreements.
She writes,
Of course, prosecutors can’t send corporations to jail — they are inanimate paper entities. But forcing them to acknowledge that they broke criminal laws is more than a symbolic gesture, which is why corporate lawyers work so hard to avoid such outcomes. The stigma of such guilty pleas lasts, rightly spooking existing and would-be investors.
Holder’s record in this area is tainted by his embrace of the “too big to jail” argument that the collateral damage from going after even the most serious corporate malefactors is intolerable. She writes,
This egregious off-ramp was spawned by the distorted fable the Fortune 100 have spun to explain the demise of Arthur Andersen, which followed its gigantic client, Enron, out of business within months after the sham finances they had erected together hit the press. The fable attributes Andersen’s collapse to a criminal indictment lodged by Justice Department prosecutors. In truth, its clients had deserted the firm in droves when it was first implicated in the scandal, and the disclosure that employees had shredded tons of paper as soon as Enron was discredited hastened this exodus.
As a practical matter, the collateral damage exception means that lawyers for Fortune 100 companies accused of committing unforgivable crimes — from fraud and bribery to egregious environmental violations — routinely troop over to the Justice Department to explain how they might go out of business if indicted. This bizarre system means that all corporate executives really need to do when contemplating cutting corners in a criminal mode is to weigh the benefits of such misdeeds against the costs of doing business they might have to pay if federal prosecutors catch them in the act. They might suffer one bad day when prosecutors announce such settlements with great fanfare. But they can go on about their business without worrying about probation, much less parole.
Steinzor will take a thorough look at the issue in her forthcoming book, Why Not Jail: Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. That won’t be out for a couple months, so in the meantime, Check out her piece in The Hill.
Showing 2,825 results
Matthew Freeman | October 14, 2014
In an op-ed published in The Hill on Friday, CPR President Rena Steinzor makes the case that in appointing a successor to Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama needs to find a prosecutor tough enough to go after corporate malfeasance with more than a series of comparatively weak deferred prosecution agreements. She writes, Of course, […]
David Driesen | October 13, 2014
EPA’s proposed new rule for greenhouse gas emissions from power plants gets a lot of things right. For one thing, it recognizes that electric utilities can employ a variety of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They can switch to natural gas or even renewable energy sources. They can fund end-use efficiency improvements—such as energy […]
Erin Kesler | October 9, 2014
Today, OSHA announced that it is seeking new ideas from stakeholders about preventing workplace injuries caused by exposure to harmful chemicals. The agency wants to identify new ways to develop Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs), the basic standards for reducing air contaminants. CPR's Executive Director Matthew Shudtz responded to the development: It’s great that Dr. Michaels is continuing to seek […]
Daniel Farber | October 8, 2014
Ebola’s natural reservoirs are animals, if only because human hosts die to too quickly. Outbreaks tend to occur in locations where changes in landscapes have brought animals and humans into closer contact. Thus, there is considerable speculation about whether ecological factors might be related to the current outbreak. (See here). At this point, at least, we […]
James Goodwin | October 2, 2014
Apparently undeterred by all the bad press it has received lately, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy has cast its controversy-attracting lightning rod ever higher in the air by issuing a feeble comment letter attacking the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pending rulemaking to define the scope of the Clean Water Act (“Waters of […]
Daniel Farber | September 18, 2014
A Texas judge’s award of attorney fees is a threat to all public interest groups, liberal or conservative. A couple of weeks ago, a federal district judge in Texas awarded over $6 million in attorneys’ fees against the Sierra Club. Sierra Club had survived motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, only to lose at trial. […]
Anne Havemann | September 12, 2014
If you own a car, you’re used to paying a registration fee every two years. It may not be your favorite activity, but you do it. And you recognize that the fees and others like it help offset the cost of making sure vehicles on Maryland’s roads are safe, that their polluting emissions are within […]
Erin Kesler | September 10, 2014
Today, the National Association of Manufacturers released a report produced by economic consultants Crain and Crain on the “cost of regulations to manufacturers and small businesses.” CPR Senior Analyst James Goodwin responded to the study: Past Crain & Crain reports on the costs of regulation have been roundly and rightly criticized for unreliable research methods, including basing their studies on opinion […]
Erin Kesler | September 9, 2014
Today CPR Member Scholar and Indiana University School of Law professor Robert Fischman is testifying today for the House Committee on Natural Resources on potential amendments to the Endangered Species Act. According to the testimony: I. THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT SHOULD BE A LAST RESORT FOR CONSERVATION, NOT THE PRINCIPAL TOOL. Though Congress intended the ESA […]