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I'm certainly going to ask my corporate lawyer friends next time I see them. But my disagreement is with the "does not shield you in any way", and where I say t
by ethbro 8y ago
I'm certainly going to ask my corporate lawyer friends next time I see them. But my disagreement is with the "does not shield you in any way", and where I say there is a de facto buffer.
If I commit a crime while working for Dow Chemical, the plaintiff must prove that (1) a crime was committed and (2) that I was personally responsible for it being committed.
This sounds exactly like what would need to be proved if I were unemployed and committed a crime, but the different regimes of tort, criminal, and corporate law that bank switch into play when a corporation is involved mean the lawsuit proceeds under different rules.
Essentially, I'd argue that case law affords someone working for a corporation far more options for defense than an average Joe, thereby making it unequal (aka buffering).
- tptacek 8y agoLet me know what they say! With regards to your (1), (2) predicates: that's the case in every crime! Corporations present the additional problem of whether a person who instructed (or set up an incentive system that effectively instructed) you to commit a crime is also criminally liable. But your boss's liability, so far as I understand the law, never shields you from liability. We want there to be joint liability between the person who commits the crime and the person who orders and profits from the crime. I'm ready to believe it's challenging to achieve that; that often only the people who actually commit crimes are charged in these corporate cases. But this subthread started because I read your first comment as suggesting that, simply by dint of committing a crime at a corporation, the alter ego liability of the corporation protected criminals. I do not believe that.