Law Commons^™

Bounties For Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers Under The Dodd-Frank Act And Internal Revenue Code, Jennifer M. Pacella

Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.

In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million reward or “bounty” from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme by assisting thousands of U.S. taxpayers to hide their assets in Switzerland. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public’s common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which allows rewards for whistleblowers who are convicted …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

The Development And Evolution Of The U.S. Law Of Corporate Criminal Liability, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, corporate criminal liability developed in response to the industrial revolution and the rise in the scope and importance of corporate activities. This article focuses principally on federal law, which bases corporate criminal liability on the respondeat superior doctrine developed in tort law. In the federal system, the formative period for the doctrine of corporate criminal liability was the early Twentieth Century, when Congress dramatically expanded the reach of federal law, responding to the unprecedented concentration of economic power in corporations and combinations of business concerns as well as new hazards to public health and safety. Both …

The Icc's Exit Problem, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was never meant to supplant the domestic prosecution of international crimes. And yet the Court is now entering its second decade of operations in four African nations, with no plan for exit in sight. This Article identifies the looming need for the ICC to consider when and how to exit situations in which it is currently active. In addition to the normative concern that a failure to start planning for exit undercuts the Court’s placement within a system of complementarity, the need to consider exit is also driven by a financial imperative. The Court’s caseload …

Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma

Michigan Law Review

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is the cornerstone of the United States’ efforts to combat the involvement of U.S. companies and individuals in corruption abroad. Enforced by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the Act targets companies and individuals that pay bribes to “foreign officials,” a nebulous category of persons that includes everyone from foreign cabinet members to janitors at companies only partially owned by a foreign state. After only sporadic enforcement in the early years of the Act’s existence, the SEC and DOJ now bring many cases annually. This increased …

Crossing The Fault Line In Corporate Criminal Law, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

Why is it that so few bankers have been prosecuted and punished in the wake of the financial meltdown? Pundits are quick to point to inadequate funding for addressing financial crime or, more cynically, the revolving door between government regulatory agencies and Wall Street. But the ultimate answer may be at once more banal and more dispiriting, lying as it does at the very foundations of our criminal law.

The conception of responsibility underpinning much of our criminal law contemplates the individual in isolation from others. As a result, our criminal law has tremendous difficulty tracking culpability in organizational contexts. …

Responsible Shares And Shared Responsibility: In Defense Of Responsible Corporate Officer Liability, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

When a corporation commits a crime, whom may we hold criminally liable? One obvious set of defendants consists of the individuals who perpetrated the crime on the corporation’s behalf. But according to the responsible corporate officer (“RCO”) doctrine, the government may also prosecute and punish those corporate executives who, although perhaps lacking “consciousness of wrongdoing,” nonetheless have “a responsible share in the furtherance of the transaction which the statute outlaws.” In other words, under the RCO doctrine, a corporate executive can come to bear criminal responsibility for an offense of her corporation that she neither participated in nor culpably failed …