Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip announced recently that the US Department of Justice is revising its corporate charging guidelines for federal prosecutors throughout the country.
The new guidance revises the Department’s Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations, which govern how all federal prosecutors investigate, charge, and prosecute corporate crimes. The new guidelines address issues that have been of great interest to prosecutors and corporations alike, particularly in the area of cooperation credit.

The approach is worth reading, especially page 18 of the Guidelines :
In determining whether or not to prosecute a corporation, the government may consider whether the corporation has taken meaningful remedial measures. A corporation's response to misconduct says much about its willingness to ensure that such misconduct does not recur. Thus, corporations that fully recognize the seriousness of their misconduct and accept responsibility for it should be taking steps to implement the personnel, operational, and organizational changes necessary to establish an awareness among employees that criminal conduct will not be tolerated.
Among the factors prosecutors should consider and weigh are whether the corporation appropriately disciplined wrongdoers, once those employees are identified by the corporation as culpable for the misconduct. Employee discipline is a difficult task for many corporations because of the human element involved and sometimes because of the seniority of the employees concerned. Although corporations need to be fair to their employees, they must also be committed, at all levels of the corporation, to the highest standards of legal and ethical behavior.
Effective internal discipline can be a powerful deterrent against improper behavior by a corporation's employees. Prosecutors should be satisfied that the corporation's focus is on the integrity and credibility of its remedial and disciplinary measures rather than on the protection of the wrongdoers.

How long can the USA go on relying on jurisdictions that do not share the same approach by notably protecting knowingly wrongdoers whatever level despite official and public evidence?



Press release

Guidelines