Overview
This lecture explored corporate crime as an often overlooked form of crime committed by companies, outlining its main types, notable examples, and its societal impact.
Definition and Invisibility of Corporate Crime
- Corporate crime involves illegal actions or omissions by companies punishable by law.
- These crimes are underrepresented in statistics due to being difficult to detect and rarely leading to prison sentences.
Types of Corporate Crime (Steve Tombs’ Framework)
- Financial offenses: false accounting, tax evasion, money laundering, and bribery.
- Offenses against consumers: selling faulty or dangerous products, misleading advertising, illegal testing, and concealing product defects.
- Offenses against employees: health and safety breaches, discrimination, pension fraud, labor law violations.
- Offenses against the environment: air/water pollution, hazardous waste dumping, unsafe manufacturing processes.
- State corporate crime: crimes by private agencies during government work.
Detailed Examples of Corporate Crime
- Tesco falsely declared profits; directors acquitted.
- Russian laundromat scandal laundered $20–80 billion via UK banks.
- Volkswagen cheated emissions tests; Ford concealed Pinto defects causing fatal fires.
- Payment protection insurance (PPI) was widely mis-sold by banks.
- BHS and Mirror Group involved in pension scandals.
- Sports Direct, Amazon, and McDonald's faced allegations over labor and health and safety violations.
- Shell polluted Niger Delta; Rio Tinto dumped hazardous waste in Ghana; Coca-Cola accused of using toxic cleaning methods in India.
State Corporate Crime
- Occurs when private firms commit crimes during public service work (e.g., Blackwater in war on terror, Grenfell fire contractors' immunity).
Key Terms & Definitions
- Corporate Crime — Illegal acts or omissions by companies, punishable by law.
- Green Crime — Environmental offenses often linked to corporate activities.
- Money Laundering — Concealing origins of illegally obtained money to make it appear legitimate.
- State Corporate Crime — Crimes by private operators during public-sector work.
Action Items / Next Steps
- Review future lecture or reading on green crime for more detail.
- Prepare class notes on examples and types of corporate crime for discussion.