Corporate criminality: Vigilance is essential
The Law Reform Commission has made recommendations to strengthen our laws governing corporate offences and gross mismanagement.
It suggests setting up a Corporate Crime Agency and a dedicated unit in the DPP’s office.
It is a timely intervention that highlights the importance of joined-up thinking when combating white-collar crime.
While Irish and EU regulations since the banking crisis have strengthened corporate enforcement, a dedicated, multi-disciplinary corporate crime agency would, in all likelihood be more efficient and more effective.
It is unclear what effect such measures would have one the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement which was set up in 2001.
The ODCE has wide investigative powers and, in fact, is in the process of hiring more specialists to make it more effective.
One of the commission’s most welcome recommendations is reform of fraud offences to address what the former governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, called “egregiously reckless risk-taking” to describe the extreme behaviour that contributed, in part, to the financial and economic crisis that emerged in 2008.
While existing laws have resulted in a number of significant convictions that related to the actions of senior bank executives in the lead up to the banking crash, it is clear that we must remain vigilant to corporate criminality.
