It Does the Crime But Not the Time: Corporate Criminal Liability in Federal Law

Michael Tigar’s Notes:

It Does the Crime But Not the Time: Corporate Criminal Liability in Federal Law, 17 Am. J. Crim. Law 211 (1990).  Corporate criminal liability was not recognized in American federal law until the early 1900s.  This article chronicles the relevant history.  French criminal law did not provide for corporate criminal liability until the 1994 code reforms sponsored by Robert Badinter.  I lectured on those reforms in Aix-en-Provence, but from notes.  See Nouveau Code Pénal art. 121-2 through 121-7.  The French reform was prompted by a series of corporate misdeeds, including the crash in the French Alps of a French airliner because the company had “economized” by not installing ground proximity warning devices on its airplanes.