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This article directs the 'visual turn' in criminology to corporate crime, a topic that has been understudied by cultural criminologists. A recent trend of corporate crime movies suggests that film can compellingly critique economic crime and unethical business cultures. This article studies how law enforcement agencies, particularly competition authorities, have connected with this trend by using film in their communicative strategy. This article introduces the emerging genre of anti-cartel enforcement thrillers: regulator-produced realistic docudramas in which fictional cartels are exposed and punished. These films' narratives about cartel enforcement are reconstructed by studying how the films portray cartels, perpetrators and their motives, and the regulator. An analysis of four films produced in four jurisdictions demonstrates that the films deter only to the extent that the local legal and political-economic context allows: the British film reflects that country's neoliberal 'pro-business' climate, while the Swedish film depicts businesses as socially responsible and the Dutch film is pragmatic rather than moralistic. Only the Australian film is explicitly punitive in its narrative as well as its imaginary, and exemplifies the persuasive potential of film in enforcement.

Enforcement against corporate offenses is increasingly carried out by specialized regulatory agencies. These often use publicity as a regulatory tool, in the expectation that disclosure of sanctions will invoke the threat of reputational damage and broadcasts a moral message about desired behavior. This article investigates how media represent administrative offenses in the Dutch financial market, in terms of punitiveness for offenders and in terms of the message about the wrongfulness and harm of offenses. Media coverage of administrative fines is messy in several senses. First, adverse publicity is unpredictable and disproportionally affects small firms in comparison with large, professional firms. In addition, it is also messy in terms of its contribution to the prevention of corporate misbehavior. Media do not unequivocally disapprove of financial market offenses. Rather than clarifying the demarcation line between right and wrong, media describe financial market behavior as a grey zone where differences of opinion can exist over whether certain behavior constitutes an offense. More than a publicity sanction or moral message, media was found to frame offenses by retail banks and capital market firms in terms of the power struggle between firms and the regulatory authority.

AbstractEnforcement agencies increasingly disclose or "name and shame" corporate offenders. This article uses responsive regulation as a framework for an empirical study of the impact of non‐anonymous publication of sanctions in the Dutch financial market. These publications are characterized as "naming without shaming", because they are used for technical guidance rather than with the intention to shame. The findings show that naming offenders functions as a general deterrent in the market for financial intermediaries, but considerably less so in the capital market. In both markets, the publication of sanctions weakened the impact of enforcement. In the capital market, the publications neutralized the seriousness of offenses and contributed to the image of the regulator as powerless. In the market for financial intermediaries, naming offenders was perceived as stigmatizing shaming and led to defiance, rather than compliance. The case study suggests, however, that the publication of sanctions may provide an opportunity for guidance, provided they contain a moral message, rather than technical instruction.

AbstractCriminological literature has often pointed to the absence or weakness of existing international regulation as important explanatory factors of corporate crime in global markets. This paper addresses the presence of multiple parallel, nested and overlapping regulatory regimes, and explores how such international regime complexity creates pathways to corporate crime. We use the Volkswagen diesel fraud case as a plausibility probe to illustrate such pathways to corporate crime. Our tentative analysis suggests that Volkswagen's fraud in the US cannot be seen as independent of the EU regulatory regime, which was more lenient and offered various opportunities for creative compliance. We conclude that a regime complexity perspective is a promising addition to existing explanations of corporate crime in international settings and suggest a research agenda for future in-depth analyses of the implications of parallel and conflicting regulatory regimes for corporate crime.

Inspectorates and enforcement agencies increasingly depend on information from societal actors to detect and enforce business offenses, but little is known about the factors underlying external reporting. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of what drives external reporters to report offenses to enforcement agencies, and how reporters experience the reporting process. Potential reasons to report are derived of the literature on whistleblowing and on business relations within organizational fields. The article then presents findings of an extensive comparative, qualitative empirical study on reporting businesses. We find that reporters aim to incapacitate competitors who gain economic advantage by bending the rules, and regard inspectorates as their ally in maintaining a level playing field.

Inspectorates and enforcement agencies increasingly depend on information from societal actors to detect and enforce business offenses, but little is known about the factors underlying external reporting. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of what drives external reporters to report offenses to enforcement agencies, and how reporters experience the reporting process. Potential reasons to report are derived of the literature on whistleblowing and on business relations within organizational fields. The article then presents findings of an extensive comparative, qualitative empirical study on reporting businesses. We find that reporters aim to incapacitate competitors who gain economic advantage by bending the rules, and regard inspectorates as their ally in maintaining a level playing field.

AbstractThis paper seeks to bridge the disciplinary gap between regulation and governance studies, and criminology. Based on a review of theoretical and empirical work on corporate crime, this paper argues that divergent approaches to questions of individual agency, localized variety, and political context, have drawn these two disciplines in different directions. Regulatory governance scholarship has thrived as a discipline, but has also narrowed its focus around these issues. Corporate criminology offers a means of broadening this focus by drawing attention to the normative theorizing behind the regulatory project. At the same time, however, insights drawn from regulatory governance scholarship can prompt corporate criminology to innovate by broadening the scope of its engagement beyond the sphere of traditional criminal justice. The paper argues for the development of a research agenda to sit at their intersection, to engage with the challenges that exist at the interface between criminal and regulatory law.

Invented in 2008 with Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies represent a radical technological innovation in finance and banking; one which threatened to disrupt the existing regulatory regimes governing those sectors. This article examines, from a reputation management perspective, how regulatory agencies framed their response. Through a content analysis, we compare communications from financial conduct regulators in the UK, US, and Australia. Despite the risks, challenges, and uncertainties involved in cryptocurrency supervision, we find regulators treat the technology as an opportunity to bolster their reputation in the immediate wake of the Global Financial Crisis. Regulators frame their response to cryptocurrencies in ways which reinforce the agency's ingenuity and societal importance. We discuss differences in framing between agencies, illustrating how historical, political, and legal differences between regulators can shape their responses to radical innovations.