Law Commons^™

The Limits Of Gatekeeper Liability, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

Gatekeeper liability – the framework under which actors such as law firms, investment banks and accountants face liability for the wrongs committed by their corporate clients – is one of the most widely used strategies for controlling corporate wrongdoing. It nevertheless faces well-recognized flaws: gatekeepers often depend financially on the clients whose conduct they monitor; to carry out their gatekeeping function, gatekeepers rely on individuals – often their employees – whose interests diverge from their own; and major transactions typically involve multiple gatekeepers, each with specific areas of expertise and information, which produces both gaps and overlaps in the gatekeeping …