Skip to main content

Decision and Punishment: Or—Hold Bankers Responsible! Corporate Criminal Liability from an Economic Perspective

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Regulating Corporate Criminal Liability

Abstract

From an economic perspective, the “principle of liability” is central: Those who decide should pay. This should hold true for white-collar crime. The decision-makers are not the corporations, but the managers—during the financial crisis, they often acted against the interests of the companies. Yet “modern” criminal prosecution focuses on prosecuting corporations. This leads to wrong incentives. Prosecution should increase its focus on managers, even if this turns out to be more difficult than prosecuting the corporation.

This document reflects the view of the author, not necessarily those of F.A.Z.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    Narrated after Bernstein and Eisinger (2010).

  2. 2.

    Similar arguments in Metzger and Schwenk (1990).

  3. 3.

    See, e.g. Ross (1973).

  4. 4.

    See, e.g. The Economist (2012).

  5. 5.

    See DPA (2012).

  6. 6.

    Gandel (2013).

  7. 7.

    Dominus (2012).

  8. 8.

    SEC (2013).

  9. 9.

    Schäfer and Saigol (2013).

  10. 10.

    Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (2013).

  11. 11.

    Armbruster (2013).

  12. 12.

    F.A.Z. (2013).

  13. 13.

    Carver (1924).

  14. 14.

    See Jahn (2013).

  15. 15.

    See, for example, Campbell and Göritz (2013).

  16. 16.

    Gandel (2013).

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patrick Bernau .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bernau, P. (2014). Decision and Punishment: Or—Hold Bankers Responsible! Corporate Criminal Liability from an Economic Perspective. In: Brodowski, D., Espinoza de los Monteros de la Parra, M., Tiedemann, K., Vogel, J. (eds) Regulating Corporate Criminal Liability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05993-8_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics