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Corporate Sentencing Guidelines: First 10 Years (Ethikos) Corporate Sentencing Guidelines: First 10 Years (Ethikos) November/December 2001 - By Jeffrey M. Kaplan. The Sentencing Guidelines: The First Ten Years November 1st was the ten-year anniversary of the federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations. These “Corporate” Guidelines announced what one prosecutor (then Manhattan U.S. Attorney Otto Obermaier) called a “practical partnership” between government and the business community in preventing white-collar crime. The essence of that partnership is a carrot-and-stick approach, with the carrot a promise of tangible incentives for companies to develop and implement effective compliance programs and the stick the threat of devastating punishment for corporations, convicted of a federal offense, that had failed to take such proactive measures. As the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s then Deputy General Counsel, Win Swenson, told ethikos: “The Commission wanted to provide organizations with a clear incentive to take actions that should reduce the likelihood of criminal conduct. The Commission’s review of past cases made clear that few organizations that find their way into the federal courts have effective compliance programs. The Commission also learned through public comment that there is a need even among organizations that have never been convicted of crime for increased attention to and strengthening of internal mechanisms to prevent and detect unlawful conduct.” (See ethikos, July/Aug. 1991.) “Now is the time to review corporate compliance programs,” noted the publication at the time. An experimental approach Ten years after, it is easy to forget just how experimental this approach was. Early on, William W. Wilkins, Jr., then Chairman of the Commission, wrote, “[T]he ‘carrot and stick’ approach of the guidelines for organizations, with its heavy reliance on . . . compliance programs, must still be viewed as developmental. If organizations ignore this exploratory invitation to shield against potential liability with well designed and rigorously implemented compliance systems, it is doubtful this new approach will endure.” (Foreward, Kaplan, Murphy & Swenson, eds., Compliance Programs and the Corporate Sentencing Guidelines: Preventing Criminal and Civil Liability, p. Full Article: http://www.singerpubs.com/ethikos/html/guidelines10years.html |
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2006 Ethics-Governance.com |
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