Revisiting the Question of Imputation in Corporate Criminal Law

It is now trite knowledge that corporate criminal liability is laced with a large number of contradictions that seriously threaten its legitimacy. This book demonstrates that these contradictions may be avoided if courts consistently refer to an adequate mechanism of imputation. It proposes parameters for evaluating mechanisms of imputation and shows how an adequate mechanism may be determined. This distinctive book provides students and practitioners with an exposition of the current substantive and procedural corporate criminal law and considers other ways of regulating the activities of corporations than using the criminal law. It also addresses the distinction between internal knowledge and external knowledge with reference to pedigreed and non-pedigreed rules and shows how the concept of discursive dilemma may be employed to aggregate the acts and intents of agents for the purposes of imputing these acts and intents to accused corporations and holding them liable. This book is highly recommended for students of criminology, law and business. It should also be of interest to defence counsels, prosecutors and regulatory agencies that either represent and advise corporate defendants or seek to hold corporations accountable for the breach of criminal law standards.