European Developments in Corporate Criminal Liability

When corporations carry on their business in a grossly negligent manner, or take a cavalier approach to risk management, the consequences can be catastrophic. The harm may be financial, as occurred when such well-regarded companies as Enron, Lehman Brothers, Worldcom and Barings collapsed, or it may be environmental, as illustrated most recently by the Gulf oil spill. Sometimes deaths and serious injuries on a mass scale occur, as in the Bhopal gas disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, the Paris crash of the Concorde, the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise, and rail crashes at Southall, Paddington and Hatfield in England.What role can the law play in preventing such debacles and in punishing the corporate offenders?

This collection of thematic papers and European country reports addresses these questions at both a theoretical and empirical level. The thematic papers analyse corporate criminal liability from a range of academic disciplines, including law, sociology/criminology, economics, philosophy and environmental studies, whilst the country reports look at the laws of corporate crime throughout Europe, highlighting both common features and irreconcilable differences between the various jurisdictions.

James Gobert has been a Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Essex since 1989, and before that at the University of Tennessee. He has also taught at the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Notre Dame (London). His specialist areas of research are corporate crime and white collar crime and he has spoken on these topics at universities and conferences throughout Europe, Australia and North America.

Ana-Maria Pascal is the MBA Programme Director at London College of Business, having previously been a Lecturer and Senior Researcher at the University of Essex. She holds a PhD in Philosophy and an MBA in International Finance. Her recently published PhD thesis, Pragmatism and 'the End' of Metaphysics (2009) won the Aurel Leon award for debut.