Corporate Deals Replace Trials

I came across quite an interesting article in the New York Times entitled, “In Justice Shift, Corporate Deals Replace Trials.” This article began with the case of Monsanto, a chemical company, which provided a bribe to an Indonesian official. Monsanto was caught and required to pay a $1 million fine and agree to a monitoring program with the Justice Department. This was agreed upon in exchange for avoiding any type of criminal prosecution. Apparently according to the article, our Justice Department has avoided criminally prosecuting at least 50 companies in the last three years.

The companies that agree to this deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) are able to avoid public scrutiny, criminal prosecution, and bankruptcy. I see many problems with this change in policy. First is the company’s ability to as the article stated, “test the limits of corporate anti-fraud laws.” With companies knowing that the worse case scenario is a fine and monitoring they might view that the risk is worth the reward. I see potential for the amount of fraud in corporations to significantly increase. The second problem is the violation of our system of laws. The laws and punishments were created to protect and apply to everyone. It does not seem fair that Enron was federally prosecuted a few years ago but a company with a similar violation today could simply get a slap on the wrist. Where is the sense of justice? It is scary to think that our own justice system is allowing companies to get off easy.

Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/washington/09justice.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin