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Corporate Essence and Identity in Criminal Law
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Corporate Essence and Identity in Criminal Law

Mihailis E. Diamantis
Journal of business ethics, Vol.154(4), pp.955-966
02/01/2019
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3892-4
url
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3892-4View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

How can we know whether we are punishing the same corporation that committed some past crime? Though central to corporate criminal justice, legal theorists and philosophers have yet to address the basic question of how corporate identity persists through time. Simple cases, where crime and punishment are close in time and the corporation has changed little, can mislead us into thinking an answer is always easy to come by. The issue becomes more complicated when corporate criminals undergo any number of transformationsrebranding, spinning-offa division, merging, changing ownership, changing management, swapping lines of business, etc. These changes are common among allcorporations, including those trying to conceal or limit liability for past crimes. This article takes a first step toward developing a workable and philosophically satisfying theory of corporate personal identity and discusses its prospects for fulfilling the retributive, rehabilitative, and deterrent purposes of criminal law.
Business Business & Economics Ethics Social Sciences Social Sciences - Other Topics

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