Celia Wells

Corporations and Criminal Responsibility

Public toleration of corporate harms is evaporating: deaths and injuries at work and transport accidents increasingly prompt a call for prosecution of a corporation. Should corporations be punished? This book draws on philosophical, cultural and psychological factors in considering arguments about the criminal liability of corporations. Justifications for criminal punishment and the underlying bases of criminal responsibility are described in the context of corporate activities, and the system of regulation and control of corporate harm through, for example, health and safety legislation, is examined and contrasted with conventional enforcement of criminal laws. Public perception of corporate harms are explored from a number of perspectives including the institutional framework of inquests and public inquiries. The trial of P & O on manslaughter charges following the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster is fully analyzed.

Corporate Criminal Liability in England and Wales: Past, Present, and Future

We usually think of law reform as a three-stage sequence in which an issue inadequately covered by existing law is identified, followed by proposals to fill that gap, leading to legislative change and improvement. The recent history of corporate criminal liability in England and Wales has transposed the last two stages of this process.

Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law Text and Materials

Since the publication of the first edition, this textbook has offered one of the most distinctive and innovative approaches to the study of criminal law. Looking at both traditional and emerging areas, such as public order offences and corporate manslaughter, it offers a broad and thorough perspective on the subject. Material is organised thematically and is clearly signposted at the beginning of each section to allow the student to navigate successfully through the different fields. This new edition looks at topical issues such as policing, the Serious Crime Act 2007, and reform of the Fraud Act 2006. Relevant case law and extracts from the most topical and engaging debates give the subject immediacy. The book is essential for both undergraduate and postgraduate study of criminal law and justice.

Women law professors: negotiating and transcending gender identities at work

This paper reports a research project on womenlaw professors in the U.K. Despite theirsimilar social and educational backgrounds,successful women legal academics disclosemarked differences in their perceptions of theinfluence of gender on their work identities.Many emphasise the caring and pastoral rolesthey adopt, or are expected to adopt.Organisational cultures also emerge as asignificant factor in determining the genderexperiences of women law professors. The fewwith experience as head of school downplay thesignificance of gender while simultaneouslyacknowledging the influence of genderconstructions and expectations.

Partial reform of partial defences: Developments in England and Wales

The offences of murder and manslaughter have been the subject of several Law Commission reviews in England and Wales but no wholesale reform. The two major difficulties with the law of murder have been the continuing commitment to the mandatory penalty and the impossibility of capturing culpability in a nuanced way through the mechanics of the mental element of ‘intention to cause death or serious bodily harm’. The long accepted solution to these difficulties has been the use of partial defences of diminished responsibility and provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter in some circumstances, despite the defendant clearly having satisfied the mental element. In 2006, the Law Commission proposed a new architecture of homicide offences which would have resulted in partial defence killings being in the second of three categories of killing. This would have located them in the same bracket as killings accompanied by either intention to cause serious injury or an intention to cause injury coupled with a serious risk of causing death. Rather than adopt this new scheme, the government fast tracked reform of partial defences but retained the current bifurcation between murder and manslaughter. While diminished responsibility was retained, albeit cast in slightly different terms, provocation was replaced by a defence of ‘loss of control’. In this article we analyse these changes, consider the statutory consolidation of the law of self-defence, and point up the continuing incoherence and confusion in this area.

Enforcing Anti-Bribery Laws against Transnational Corporations — A UK Perspective

A significant, sustained increase in international enforcement of anti-corruption legislation has been evident in the last ten years. US, UK, and German authorities, among others, have cooperated to impose criminal and other penalties against transnational corporations as well as against individual senior executives.1 This is a double challenge to the comfort zone of criminal law, which is traditionally about individual wrongdoing and territorial jurisdiction. Opportunities for bribery and corruption are widespread. We know that transnational corporations have exponentially increased their influence on world trade in the last 20–30 years and global trade is characterized by complex and circuitous global value chains (GVCs). Raw materials extracted in one country may be exported to a second country for processing, then exported again to a manufacturing plant in a third country, which may then export to a fourth country for final consumption via GVCs ‘orchestrated for the most part by transnational corporations.’ GVCs now account for 80 percent of the

Corporate Responsibility and Compliance Programs in the United Kingdom

20 trillion in trade each year.2 The world’s biggest multinational corporations are disproportionately located in the US and Europe. In 2004, five countries (the US, UK, Japan, France, and Germany) accounted for 73 percent of the top 100 firms, while the EU alone contained 53 percent of all entries.3

Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law by Celia Wells

After a preliminary historical overview of the common law framework as it existed before the adoption of the Bribery Act 2010 and in particular, of the general principles that were utilized in order to ascertain corporate liability, the chapter analyzes this latter statute and the three new offenses provided by it: “active” bribery, “passive” bribery, and bribery of a foreign public official. In addition, the chapter provides a comprehensive outline of the corporate failure offense established by section 7 of the Act, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses, and emphasizing the problems related to the identification of the relevant activities for which commercial organizations could be considered responsible under the Act, and the unclarity of the term “carrying on business” as provided by section 12. Finally the chapter addresses issues related to enforcement procedures, such as the evidential and the public interest thresholds, and concurrent jurisdictions.

Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law Text and Materials: Table of statutes

Since the publication of the first edition, this textbook has offered one of the most distinctive and innovative approaches to the study of criminal law. Looking at both traditional and emerging areas, such as public order offences and corporate manslaughter, it offers a broad and thorough perspective on the subject. Material is organised thematically and is clearly signposted at the beginning of each section to allow the student to navigate successfully through the different fields. This new edition looks at topical issues such as policing, the Serious Crime Act 2007, and reform of the Fraud Act 2006. Relevant case law and extracts from the most topical and engaging debates give the subject immediacy. The book is essential for both undergraduate and postgraduate study of criminal law and justice.

Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law Text and Materials: Law, Order and Security

Since the publication of the first edition, this textbook has offered one of the most distinctive and innovative approaches to the study of criminal law. Looking at both traditional and emerging areas, such as public order offences and corporate manslaughter, it offers a broad and thorough perspective on the subject. Material is organised thematically and is clearly signposted at the beginning of each section to allow the student to navigate successfully through the different fields. This new edition looks at topical issues such as policing, the Serious Crime Act 2007, and reform of the Fraud Act 2006. Relevant case law and extracts from the most topical and engaging debates give the subject immediacy. The book is essential for both undergraduate and postgraduate study of criminal law and justice.