论单位犯罪的刑事责任

我国刑法的通说将“经单位集体讨论或单位负责人决定实施的危害社会的行为”作为单位犯罪的核心要件。但是 ,这种理解具有难以划清单位代表或机关成员的犯罪和单位自身犯罪之间的界限、扩大或缩小单位负刑事责任的范围、不符合现实社会中的单位犯罪的实际情况、无法适用于规模较大的现代企业等弊端。在追究单位犯罪的刑事责任时 ,应从追究单位自身固有的责任角度出发 ,除关注单位集体决定和单位负责人的决定之外 ,还应考虑单位的目标、业务范围、规章制度、防范措施等单位自身制度方面的情况。这样 ,才能准确地把握单位的真实意志 ,正确地认定和处理现实中所发生的单位犯罪。     

Causal factors of corporate crime in Taiwan: qualitative and quantitative findings

Street crimes are a primary concern of most criminologists in Taiwan. In recent years, however, crimes committed by corporations have increased greatly in this country. Employing the empirical approach to collect data about causal factors of corporate crime, the research presented in this article is the first systematic empirical study concerning corporate crime in Taiwan. The research sample was selected from a corporation with a criminal record of pollution caused by the release of toxic chemicals into the environment and a corporation with no criminal record. Questionnaire survey and interviews of corporate employees and managers were conducted, and secondary data were collected from official agencies. This research indicated the causal factors of corporate crime as follows: the failure of government regulation, lack of corporate self-regulation, lack of public concern about corporate crime, corporate mechanistic structure, and the low self-control tendency of corporate managers.     

论单位犯罪的形态结构——兼论单位与单位成员责任分离论

现行单位刑事责任的立法规定是以单位犯罪是一个犯罪行为为理论前提的,因而存在诸多理不断、剪还乱的理论死结。为此,有必要重新审视单位犯罪的形态结构,理顺犯罪单位与犯罪单位成员之间的罪责关系。通常所说的"单位犯罪"实是一种特殊的犯罪聚合体,具体包括两个犯罪行为:一个是客观实在的由单位成员实施的自然人犯罪;另一个是法律拟制的单位犯罪。即源初意义上的"单位犯罪"。这两个犯罪行为因"为单位谋利"的单位成员行为在法律评价上的双重性而被立法者人为地聚合在一起,但单位责任和单位成员责任在构成和追诉上应当是各自独立和分离的,二者并不牵涉或互为前提。     

The downsizing of America: A neglected dimension of the white collar crime problem

Downsizing has emerged as one of the noteworthy economic trends of the 1990's. This paper offers a preliminary exploration of the implications of corporate downsizing (real or perceived) for white collar crime. The following are among the issues considered: Can downsizing be defined, in a meaningful sense, as a crime against stakeholders (for the benefit of shareholders)? Is downsizing an alternative to the commission of illegal acts by corporations seeking to maximize profit and minimize loss, or an adjunct to such crime? Is the prospect of downsizing likely to inspire greater or lesser willingness on the part of corporate middle managers to engage in illegal acts on behalf of the corporation? Are motivations to commit crime against corporate employers — and opportunities to do so — intensified (or diminished) as a consequence of the prospect of downsizing? Does downsizing promote higher levels of engagement in white collar crime among corporate middle managers compelled to accept white collar jobs paying far less than positions lost due to downsizing? Finally, does downsizing and its prospect contribute to a broader social and cultural environment conducive to more white collar crime?     

Making the rules and breaking the rules: the political origins of corporate corruption in the new economy

Recent scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom have pointed to the systemic origins of many corporate frauds. This paper advances the argument that behind those scandals were strategic political actions that changed the regulatory and legal environment in which those firms operated and created criminogenic institutional frameworks that facilitated acts of corporate corruption. Three case studies involving (1) the California energy crisis of the late 1990's, (2) the regulation of energy derivatives, and (3) accounting treatments of stock options, are presented to illustrate how markets and the rules that govern them are the products of political processes and how they can create motivations and opportunities for corporate fraud. The implications these case studies have for the study of corporate crime and corruption are discussed.     

Asymmetries of control: Surveillance,intrusion, and corporate theft of privacy

This paper deals with the asymmetry in relations between the individual actor and the corporation. In particular the paper focuses on the impact of corporate use of technologies of surveillance, ostensibly to reduce crime and to increase efficiency. A case is made that the use of these technologies to invade citizens' personal privacy in order to procure personal information without consent is a still-unrecognized form of corporate theft. Steps toward a remedy are suggested.     

Responses to corporate versus individual wrongdoing

For many years, researchers assumed that the public was indifferent to corporate wrongdoing, but recent surveys have discovered evidence to the contrary. Taking insights from these data a step further, this study employed an experimental design to examine whether people responded differently to corporate versus individual wrongdoers. We varied the identity of the central actor in a scenario involving harm to workers. Half the respondents were informed that a corporation caused the harm; the remainder were told that an individual did so. Respondents applied a higher standard of responsibility to the corporate actor. For identical actions, the corporation was judged as more reckless and more morally wrong than the individual. Respondents' judgments of the greater recklessness of the corporation led them to recommend higher civil and criminal penalties against the corporation.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the Law and Society Association (1986), the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1986), and the American Psychological Association (1987). Writing was facilitated by a NIMH Fellowship in Psychology and Law at Stanford University to Valerie Hans. The authors wish to thank Jeffrey Davidson, Sam Gaertner, Michael Levi, Nancy Pennington, David Sciulli, Wes Skogan, and Robert Wood for their contributions to the work.     

论单位犯罪的主体

本文认为,单位犯罪的主体只有一个即单位,单位犯罪中直接负责的主管人员和其他直接责任人员不是单位犯罪的主体。作为单位犯罪主体的单位具有社会组织性、物质条件性、组织机构性、责任能力性、决策独立性和合法性等特征。单位犯罪主体的种类为公司、企业、事业单位、机关、团体。并认为,任何私营企业都可以成为单位的犯罪主体;单位的分支机构及其内设部门在一定条件下可以成为单位犯罪的主体;承包单位也可以成为单位犯罪的主体。     

Citizenship and the Corporation

This article investigates the contribution made by the concept of citizenship to contemporary understandings of the widely held business corporation. Because the conventional economic understanding of corporations and corporate law cannot fully explain the nature of the business corporation and the purposes of corporate law, the framework within which teachers and students of corporate law approach the corporation must be enlarged. By looking at the corporation exclusively through the lens of economics we are unable to account for all features of the corporation and corporate law, and we risk mistaking the purpose of these features, or wrongly supposing that they serve no purpose. The article proposes that through resort to a distinct set of conceptual tools—the concept of citizenship, borrowed from political theory—we can attain a fuller comprehension of the meaning of the corporation.     

论公司犯罪的刑事责任构造

公司犯罪是公司作为主体实施的犯罪。公司犯罪的刑事责任表现为双层结构:一层是刑事责任要件,由刑事义务、归责能力和归责要素组成;另一层是公司的刑事责任分担,包括分担的理论解说和分担原则解释。公司的何等人员应当承担刑事责任,需要运用过错和职位两个规则,并结合各国公司治理结构进行判断。     

Environmental pollution: corporate crime and cancer mortality

Corporate crime remains more costly and arguably more harmful than street crime and such harms include environmental, air, and water pollution resulting in increasing cancer mortality rates around the globe. More importantly, these corporate crimes are global in nature and facilitated by transnational corporations’ capture of the USA Environmental Protection Agency.     

单位犯罪存在范围的批判性反思

市场经济的进一步发展催生出了更多的单位犯罪,我国1997年《刑法》正式将单位确定为犯罪主体,这对于打击单位犯罪具有里程碑式的意义。但是,由于立法层面上没有兼顾单位犯罪与自然人犯罪之间的逻辑平衡,加之刑法理论界相关研究的匮乏,导致在司法层面上对单位犯罪的认定各行其是,以致使得刑事司法难以应对诸多的新型单位犯罪。因此,针对单位犯罪研究与司法操作的混乱局面,深入探究单位犯罪与自然人犯罪的关系,进而全面思索刑事立法对于单位犯罪加以干预范围的明确化和视角转换问题,对于完善单位犯罪刑法规制体系具有立法和理论研究的必要性和前瞻性。     

Truman's revenge: Social control and corporate crime

Many criminologists have found that corporate crime does more harm than street crime, whether measured by property lost, money stolen, or lives taken. Yet, public concern about crime is almost exclusively focused on street crime and “just deserts” for the offender. The authors argue that corporate criminality is more likely than individual criminality to be planned and subjected to cost/benefit analysis than street crime and therefore more likely to be deterred by raising the costs of corporate criminality. The Model Penal Code is used to demonstrate that both individual and corporate crime produce a comparable array of avoidable harms. Public policies that demand just deserts for individual offenders (natural persons) are revealed as highly inconsistent with policies that protect corporations (juristic persons) from accountability for the harms they create. A philosophical and legal foundation for corporate crime control strategies is provided. The authors propose a sanctions regime for corporate criminals comparable to the sanctions regime imposed on natural persons for street crimes. Strategies to avoid risk shifting by corporations are suggested. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Toward a control theory of white-collar offending

In this study, Hirschi's control theory was conceptually developed and empirically tested as a rationale for white-collar offending. The data were gathered from a sample of 435 executives who were employees of a multinational automobile manufacturer. Results suggest that factors within the corporation such as managerial attachments, work commitment and involvement, and belief in corporate rules significantly affect individual rates of executive self-reported offending. In particular, those executives who possessed the strongest bond to their manager, their co-workers, and the corporation itself were least likely to report having engaged in a white-collar crime. Theoretical implications of these findings and how they relate to extant theories of white-collar criminality are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Montreal, November 16, 1987.     

Advancing Direct Corporate Accountability in International Human Rights Law: The Role of State-Owned Enterprises

Resorting to the immensely state-centric international legal system to regulate corporate human rights abuses is often viewed as inadequate. Among many proposals aiming at filling the international regulatory gaps, imposing international human rights obligations directly on corporations is a bold one, which, due to profound doctrinal and practical challenges, is yet to be materialized. However, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), given their prima facie “state–business nexus” that blurs the traditional public–private divide, might provide a renewed opportunity to push forward the “direct international corporate accountability” campaign. This study investigates whether SOEs represent a golden chance for direct corporate accountability in the international legal regime. This study provides a legal analysis supported by case law, and by comparative and empirical research when appropriate. After providing a definitional account of SOEs, it examines the legal status of SOEs under international law. Then, in the reverse direction, it proceeds to explore if the state–business nexus of SOEs as non-state actors could render the argument toward direct international corporation accountability more convincing. Major findings reveal that SOEs, to a limited extent, represent a renewed opportunity to rethink direct corporate accountability under international law.     

组织体罪责理念下单位故意的认定:以污染环境罪为例

我国理论通说和司法实践在认定单位犯罪时习惯以自然人的行为和意志为关联和前提,这种个体主义的思路存在诸多缺陷。单位既不能被还原为单个的自然人,也不是自然人的简单集合,组织结构、管理制度、经营方式等客观因素是单位的重要组成部分。单位具有独立的意志和刑事责任。需以整体主义的视角判断组织体罪责,单位犯意仍需区分故意与过失。单位故意是个体在单位内的决策机制或默认规则之作用下最终形成的意志,既有自然人意志的主观色彩,也深受单位客观因素的影响。从整体上把握单位的决策机制、管理制度的政策倾向、管理运营的惯常模式可以帮助认定单位故意。     

公司契约理论对公司法的解读

公司契约理论为我们认识公司法和一系列公司制度提供了新的视角。以公司契约理论来解读我国公司法律制度,我们可知,我国公司法应属于私法,以授权性、任意性规范为主;公司治理的理论基础应该是契约自由;作为对契约"缝隙"的弥补,司法对公司运作应是有限介入。     

Re-imagining crime prevention: controlling corporate crime?

While the discourses and practices of crime prevention are of increasing salience, few criminologists have sought the inclusion of corporate illegalities on such agendas. Relatedly, within criminology, there has been a diminished tendency to think in idealistic, utopian and emancipatory terms. This paper is one small attempt to think in precisely such terms.¹ But it is not an exercise in pure imagination. In particular, the paper makes extended reference to Finland, where recent experience suggests that corporate crime prevention may be feasible, under certain conditions, albeit subject to certain limitations. Thus we consider both the desirability and the feasibility of corporate crime prevention intruding upon the generally narrowly constructed terrain of ‘crime prevention’. We begin with a critique of some of the key aspects of crime prevention discourses – at both theoretical and practical levels – with a particular emphasis upon the extent to which these are both more appropriately and usefully applied to corporate crime prevention, before going on to discuss corporate crime prevention ‘in action’, through a focus upon recent developments in Finland. In a concluding section, we consider various aspects of both the desirability and feasibility of corporate crime prevention.     

Sanctioning corporate crime: How do business executives and the public compare?

Previous literature on attitudes toward the punishment or seriousness of criminal behavior has largely neglected to focus systematically upon five issues: (1) public perceptions of corporate illegality rather than perceptions of street crime or other forms of white-collar lawlessness; (2) how evaluations are conditioned by the degree of culpability and harm an offense involves; (3) the circumstances under which citizens will support the use of legal sanctions against an individual executive as opposed to a corporate entity; (4) the public's willingness to support criminal as opposed to civil intervention into various kinds of illegal corporate activities; and (5) how business executives' attitudes toward corporate legal sanctioning compare to those held by the general public. Through a survey of residents and business executives in a midwestern metropolitan area, an attempt was made to shed light on these issues. The analysis revealed a pervasive willingness among the sample to embrace the use of civil sanctions against corporations regardless of the circumstances surrounding the conduct being rated. By contrast, advocacy of civil remedies against executives and criminal penalties against either the corporation or its executives was found to vary considerably according to the culpability and harm manifested by a given illegal act. Also, public support for sanctioning corporate behavior was consistently higher than the support evidenced by executives, especially where the sanctions were directed at individual corporate managers.     

DISTRICT ATTORNEYS AND CORPORATE CRIME: SURVEYING THE PROSECUTORIAL GATEKEEPERS

A mail survey of California district attorneys regarding corporate crime focused on the recent experiences of the prosecutors with such crimes and on factors that limit the likelihood of their prosecuting corporate offenders. A significant majority of the district attorneys had prosecuted a variety of corporate crimes, and a sizable minority anticipated devoting more resources to corporate crime prosecutions in the future. There was a strong consensus among the district attorneys that the primary obstacle to corporate crime prosecutions is not political but practical and inheres in the level of resources available to them. Prosecutors in small districts were more constrained by the potential impact that a corporate prosecution might have on the local economy than their counterparts in large districts. This finding suggests that community context may influence social control responses to corporate lawbreakers.