Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RevACLaw (Revamping Anticorruption Criminal Law – Strategies and Consequences)
Période du rapport: 2022-03-01 au 2023-08-31
The project “RevACLaw” brings together interdisciplinary researchers who are determined to investigate major changes that are occurring in criminal justice systems of several jurisdictions – notably on the supply side – when it comes to react to transnational corporate corruption. In fact, fighting transnational corporate corruption is today a global task that requires the attention and commitment of a wide range of state and non-state actors. Enforcement of anti-corruption norms has, in fact, flourished in recent years, resulting in multi-jurisdictional criminal procedures. This change is due to the revamping of strategies in three major fields of law (substantive criminal law, procedural criminal law, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters). Focusing on four of the most active jurisdictions (France, Switzerland, USA, and the UK), RevACLaw team members are researching theses revamping strategies and the resulting cross-cutting dynamics. Astonishingly, a hybrid model of corporate criminal justice has emerged, which was unthinkable in the past and still is unthinkable in almost any other field of criminal justice. This heretofore insufficiently studied model has led to a new, opaque, and exclusive way of conducting criminal justice: non-trial settlements. This is an important development in various criminal justice systems that rises the following question: does this kind of criminal justice sufficiently satisfy societal needs in terms of legal security, equal treatment of offenders, and public transparency of criminal justice? This question gains relevance especially against the background of the general political and legal tenor considering this new way of doing criminal justice as a step forward.
RevACLaw’s objectives are the following:
(A) unveiling the revamping strategies and how they interact in three fields of law (substantive criminal law, procedural criminal law, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters), and conceptualising this new way of conducting justice as a social practice, (B) delivering both a theoretical and empirical analysis of the accessibility of the resulting settlements, and (C) analysing case-making and the occurring narratives of corporate corruption and anticorruption law enforcement.
These objectives will be achieved by a novel interdisciplinary approach, including both legal and empirical socio-legal research. The project will impact the fields of legal theory as well as the study of law and society with regard to a present-day phenomenon.
RevACLaw’s objectives are the following:
(A) unveiling the revamping strategies and how they interact in three fields of law (substantive criminal law, procedural criminal law, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters), and conceptualising this new way of conducting justice as a social practice, (B) delivering both a theoretical and empirical analysis of the accessibility of the resulting settlements, and (C) analysing case-making and the occurring narratives of corporate corruption and anticorruption law enforcement.
These objectives will be achieved by a novel interdisciplinary approach, including both legal and empirical socio-legal research. The project will impact the fields of legal theory as well as the study of law and society with regard to a present-day phenomenon.
Work carried out so far is related to (1) identification of new strategies applied by criminal justice in cases of transnational corporate corruption in the four jurisdictions studied; (2) networking with relevant actors from criminal law practice and academia; (3) collection of data; and (4) conduct of theoretical and empirical analyses.
Initial findings result from legal comparative analysis of the transnational anti-corruption settlement systems as installed in the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland, and the case law respectively. The RevACLaw research team was able to reveal how criminal justice systems are struggling when it comes to identify and integrate victims of transnational corporate corruption. Our research shows that victims do not have a role in settlement procedures. Explicit de lege ferenda regulations would be favorable. Further research is, however, needed, notably in view of the determination of damage and potentially adequate legal constructions allowing the integration of victim states in non-trial settlement procedures. It is to be considered an important research topic, as in the future, authorities of states whose public officials have been corrupted, thus being on the demand side of corruption, are increasingly seeking to participate at non-trial settlements too in order to also benefit partly from the value of the confiscated assets and the money generated by the fines.
A general finding of the RevACLaw project so far is, that the choice for either formalization or informalization settlement procedures is reflected in law enforcement strategies. National legislators increasingly create explicit spaces for (more or less constrained) informality within settlement procedures, allowing negotiation and a high level of prosecutorial discretion. To give this fact more weight, work has been invested to edit a special edition of the International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice on the ‘Politics of Informality in Criminal Procedures’. A call for paper has been published, papers selected, a workshop with the authors of the submitted papers held, reviewers searched, the editorial introduction written, and corrections controlled. The special edition ‘Politics of Informality in Criminal Procedures’ should be finally published in summer 2023 .
Initial findings result from legal comparative analysis of the transnational anti-corruption settlement systems as installed in the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland, and the case law respectively. The RevACLaw research team was able to reveal how criminal justice systems are struggling when it comes to identify and integrate victims of transnational corporate corruption. Our research shows that victims do not have a role in settlement procedures. Explicit de lege ferenda regulations would be favorable. Further research is, however, needed, notably in view of the determination of damage and potentially adequate legal constructions allowing the integration of victim states in non-trial settlement procedures. It is to be considered an important research topic, as in the future, authorities of states whose public officials have been corrupted, thus being on the demand side of corruption, are increasingly seeking to participate at non-trial settlements too in order to also benefit partly from the value of the confiscated assets and the money generated by the fines.
A general finding of the RevACLaw project so far is, that the choice for either formalization or informalization settlement procedures is reflected in law enforcement strategies. National legislators increasingly create explicit spaces for (more or less constrained) informality within settlement procedures, allowing negotiation and a high level of prosecutorial discretion. To give this fact more weight, work has been invested to edit a special edition of the International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice on the ‘Politics of Informality in Criminal Procedures’. A call for paper has been published, papers selected, a workshop with the authors of the submitted papers held, reviewers searched, the editorial introduction written, and corrections controlled. The special edition ‘Politics of Informality in Criminal Procedures’ should be finally published in summer 2023 .
Research results of the RevACLaw project achieved so far, have advanced the state of the art in the field of legal analysis (material criminal law, procedural criminal law, mutual legal assistance law in criminal matters), in research about informality, in empirical research of settlements, and in the field of narrative criminology. For the second part of the project time, results are expected to advance, for example, socio-legal empirical research about transparency in negotiated justice, about case-making in non-trial settlements, and about the role and compensation of victims in transnational corporate corruption cases. Besides, theoretical and empirical contributions are planned in the framework of transnational legal theory. The doctoral theses will develop knowledge in the field of evidence law with regard to internal reports and in the field of criminology with regard to narrative expressivism. Exchange between academia and practice will be enhanced by way of a conference.