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Two major issues shape current debates on organizations. The first is structural: are changes in the world economy associated with globalization leading to the convergence of national systems of capitalism around a free market model, and is there an emerging model of jobs in firms that results from this model? The second relates to a set of social responsibilities in the light of structural changes. These include two areas of major debate: corporate social responsibility, which refers to the duties of organizations to customers, employees and others; and ethics, which gives particular attention to the responsibilities of individuals. One key example in relation to ethics is the phenomenon of the whistle-blower: a person who exposes in public the unethical practices of the organization for which he or she works. The whistle-blower has become a clearly recognized category.

In this chapter, Andrea Fried discusses the implications of a better understanding of deviance from standards for corporate responsibility in terms of both compliance-related duties for companies and their criminal liability. Five questions related to this are answered in this summarizing chapter: Is voluntary self-regulation of companies a way of ensuring corporate responsibility? What contributes to a manipulation of standards even if a strong external control and sanctioning system is in place? Should legislative authorities only sanction actual knowledge of and engagement in wrongful acts of standard deviation? Should legislation stipulate a criminal liability also for companies? Why should companies allow organizational members to deviate from standards? Answers to these questions relate to the empirical investigations presented in previous chapters of the book and show strong support for a corporate criminal law that should apply when standard deviations lead to health, environmental, or safety risks.

This essay explores varied modes of “surveillance,” “propaganda,” and “just war theory,” terms that involve diverse aspects of control (political, economic, cultural, and social) facing us today. Virginia Woolf’s writings are analysed in the context of the founding of public relations by Edwards Bernays, propaganda and surveillance during World War I, the manufacturing of consent, and the politics of language. Finally, this essay argues for the relevance of Woolf’s work to understanding the US government’s vilification and punishment of whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden—especially those who have exposed unconstitutional acts of torture and surveillance.

This is the first career interview with Academy Award–winner, Pulitzer Prize–winner, MacArthur Fellow Laura Poitras, whose shift from cooking to filmmaking brought her first into contact with the avant-garde filmmaking community in the Bay Area, and in particular, with Ernie Gehr; then into contact with Linda Goode Bryant, with whom she made Flag Wars (2003), an Emmy-winning documentary about ethnic collisions in a Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood. Her reaction to the American response to 9/11 instigated her celebrated post-9/11 trilogy of films: My Country, My Country (2006), which explores events during the election in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein; The Oath (2010), a portrait of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s one-time bodyguard; and CITIZENFOUR (2014), where Poitras worked with Ed Snowden to reveal unconstitutional surveillance practices. Her feature about Julian Assange, Risk (2016), followed. In 2015, with Charlotte Cook and A. J. Schnack, she founded Field of Vision to provide independent documentary filmmakers with a platform for their work.

This chapter asks what changes should be made, in the here and now, to improve the moral balance sheet of organizations. It introduces the notion of ‘bottom-up’ requirements on the basic structure of a society, which stem from the inner life of organizations and which aim at minimizing the risk of violations of basic moral norms. Two such ‘non-ideal’ proposals are discussed: first, improvements in the protection of individual rights against organizations, and second, a better match between organizational forms, and the pressures that come with them, and organizations with different kinds of task. For example, some organizations should be shielded from financial pressures in order to fulfil their tasks, such as care for patients, without creating grave moral risks. This is a matter of market regulation, but also of the line between public and private organizations.

There have been significant changes to Mexican law recently that have provided prosecutors updated and enhanced tools to combat corruption. In May 2015, the Mexican Congress and the states approved a constitutional amendment that created the National Anti-Corruption System, which was put into full force and effect in 2017. This supplemented and broadened the already existing anti-corruption laws in Mexico’s public procurement process. Now individuals and legal entities can be criminally liable for bribery of public officials in Mexico. In November 2014, Mexico City passed modifications to the criminal code making bribery an offense that can be committed by both individuals and legal entities and created an innovative approach to calculating penalties against companies. However, even though laws have changed, much remains to be done. The OECD noted that Mexico has fully implemented very few of the recommendations that it has made to eradicate corruption. Mexico still had no prosecutions or convictions for foreign bribery. Corruption is still common in Mexico, with the widespread use of “gestores” or intermediaries to navigate the bureaucracies responsible for issuing licenses and permits, shell companies owned by family members of government officials seeking a bribe, fictitious service providers, and improper gifting and excessive hospitality to employees of state-owned entities. With the new Lopez Obrador Administration’s anti-corruption plan, further changes are anticipated in public procurement by the creation of a central mechanism to manage and monitor public contracts to achieve greater transparency. The new administration has also committed to creating an autonomous Special Prosecutor’s Office to independently investigate and prosecute corruption cases and to implement additional restrictions on entertainment and gifts provided to public officials.

Russian anti-corruption legislation generally consists of federal laws, including codified acts. Recent developments in Russian anti-corruption legislation have mainly been aimed at stiffening the penalties for corruption-related offenses and making legal entities carry out their anti-corruption duties more effectively. In the last few years enforcement trends show that Russian law enforcement authorities are increasingly focusing on investigating corruption-related offenses committed by public officials rather than in the commercial sector. Russian law envisages both criminal and administrative liability for corruption-related offenses (save for corporate entities, which cannot be held criminally liable), including a wide variety of penalties that depend on, among other things, the amount of the bribe given and whether there are any aggravating circumstances. There is practically no difference in the way that bribery of domestic and foreign officials is treated under Russian anti-corruption legislation. Broad investigative powers are vested in investigators rather than prosecutors—the latter mainly having the role of monitoring law enforcement authorities’ compliance with the law and representing the state in criminal proceedings in court. No obligation to cooperate with investigators and prosecutors is specifically imposed in the Russian law of criminal procedure, but there are special rules governing participation by persons (including witnesses and injured parties) in criminal proceedings.

The South African legal regime recognizes the role of international law and treaties, and much of South Africa’s anti-corruption legislation has been enacted to give effect to various international conventions and treaties. Accordingly, this chapter will discuss and detail the material developments in respect of bribery and anti-corruption legislation and further consider the interplay between applicable South African legislation and international conventions. This chapter will further, inter alia, cover legal issues relating to certain presumptions applicable to statutory offenses, the nature of what is referred to as “facilitation payments,” how “gifts, gratuities and hospitality” are dealt with in terms of applicable legislation, whistle-blower protection, international cooperation and extradition agreements, and the South African corporate practice regarding the foregoing. Where one is in breach of certain anti-corruption legislation, it should be noted that one may inadvertently also be in breach of South African anti-trust legislation, and these issues will be further considered and detailed herein.

Conducting internal investigations requires a delicate balancing act for lawyers. The most immediate goal of any internal investigation is discovering the truth. But in the complicated real world occupied by today’s companies, the search for the truth finds itself in constant tension with other important, and often outcome-determinative, considerations. Nevertheless, it is critical that companies conduct an appropriately scaled, appropriately overseen investigation. This chapter first discusses the value of an internal investigation. It then offers a few words on the role of the board of directors when management or a board member is implicated, before describing in detail the basic steps a company should follow in conducting its investigation.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has changed how the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines calculate fines for certain defendant companies. The amendments, effective November 1, 2010, make more readily available a long-standing three-level offense-level reduction. This change shifts the inquiry away from (1) the (mis)conduct of the company’s high-level personnel and toward (2) the effectiveness of the company’s compliance and ethics program. This move will surely benefit corporate defendants. Therefore, it is something for which compliance professionals and in-house legal counsel need to both understand and prepare. As the benefits of incentivizing companies to adopt proactive compliance, ethics, and self-reporting programs gain wider recognition, other countries eager to beef up their anti-bribery efforts can be expected to follow suit.

This chapter assesses whether executive oversight of the Australian intelligence agencies is robust, stringent, and effective. The chapter first sets out the six Australian intelligence agencies and their functions. It then sets out the executive bodies that oversee those agencies, including the Inspector-General of Security and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. These oversight mechanisms are categorized according to the functions they perform, such as authorizing the use of covert powers or reviewing legislation. The chapter then assesses the strengths and weaknesses of this oversight system. Although these oversight bodies have wide jurisdiction and strong investigative powers, their effectiveness is limited by the broad statutory powers granted to intelligence agencies and by the reluctance of successive governments to accept their recommendations for change. The chapter concludes by suggesting some ways in which this system might be improved, including through stronger whistle-blower protections and ongoing review of counterterrorism laws.

In 1976, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued its groundbreaking Report of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Questionable and Illegal Corporate Payments and Practices, which characterized the problem of corrupt and illegal corporate payments as “serious and widespread.” Enacted in 1977, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) prohibits corrupt payments of money or anything of value to foreign officials in order to obtain or retain business. The FCPA continues to serve as the world’s only true anti-bribery touchstone against which subsequent enactments can be compared textually. Adherence to the directives of the FCPA continues as one of the most prominent issues in corporate compliance. The consequences of a DOJ investigation for an organization can be substantial and attention-diverting, a settlement can be costly, and an indictment can be crippling.

Australia’s anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws appear simple in expression but have proved illusive in securing successful prosecutions. The structure of the foreign bribery offense is complicated and requires numerous physical and mental elements to be established for each limb of the offense. Since 1999 when Australia enacted its foreign bribery laws, there have been several corporate and individual guilty pleas in foreign bribery cases but as yet no contested trials. The first case in 2011 arising out of the Securency banknote printing scandal has concluded with mixed results: several plea deals yet other prosecutions permanently stayed due to illegal conduct on the part of the investigative agencies. Other more recent cases have started but are early in the criminal justice system. The traditional approach of the Australian prosecutors is that once charges are laid, they expect a guilty plea to the offense charged or an agreed lesser offenses and then any discount is a matter for the sentencing court. Australia still lacks a structured approach to complex commercial crime including foreign bribery. While there are reforms pending before the Australian government on changes to the foreign bribery offense deferred prosecution agreements, a strict liability corporate offense of failing to prevent foreign bribery, and enhanced private sector whistle-blower laws, they are yet to be implemented. While resources at the Commonwealth level have improved over the years, they remain diffuse, underfunded, and under-resourced. Australian business is starting to adopt a more proactive response to manage offshore risk and the expected legislative reforms are pushing this along. Australian business increasingly knows it must address these issues in a global economy as its most significant trading partners are taking a similarly tough stand against bribery and corruption.

Cuba has long been saddled with a culture of corruption. A lengthy history of colonialism and a state-controlled economy have produced a country with a weak economy, product shortages, low wages, and an understanding that taking a little for oneself is not only acceptable but, in many cases, necessary to get by. Scarcity and rationing of resources have led to an environment where obtaining goods and services requires grease payments, workers steal items from their employers to sell on the black market, and employees are often absent so that they can earn extra money from side jobs. At the same time, poorly paid bureaucrats, business managers, and even high-level government officials supplement their income through illicit use of their positions. The centralization of power, strict government control of the media, and lax compliance oversight have led to a lack of transparency and accountability. While high-level corruption on a large scale is less common in Cuba than other parts of Latin America, lower-level corruption is widespread. Over the years, the ruling Castro regime has taken a number of approaches to curbing corruption that have led to laws and institutions aimed at eliminating corrupt conduct, fraud, waste, abuse, and cronyism. However, there is little protection for whistle-blowers in Cuba. Accordingly, a vital tool in the effort to detect and prevent bribery, the misuse of government funds, fraud, and other types of corruption is largely missing.

Germany is currently ranked among the top 12 in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. The country achieved this ranking through substantial efforts in the last decades in legislation, in society, and in the business sector. Today, the corporate compliance management systems of many major German corporations serve as a benchmark in the corporate world. But there is still a lot of work to do. Germany does not yet have a corporate criminal code that holds legal entities criminally liable for corruption-related offenses. German authorities still do not have a uniform and standardized procedure for acknowledging adequate compliance management systems as an affirmative defense or mitigating factor to decrease administrative fines. Although repeatedly requested by the OECD, Germany also still lacks an express and explicit law that grants specific protection to whistle-blowers from retaliation in the private sector, though many German corporations have already set up highly sophisticated whistle-blower systems. This chapter provides an overview on the most important statutory provisions and draft bills with regard to anti-corruption in Germany. Further, the chapter discusses how companies in Germany can take appropriate measures in order to navigate safely through the challenges of corruption-related liability in today’s competitive business environment.