Course Details

Corporate Criminal Law

Corporate and white collar crime are growth areas in American and European law. Corporations that do business in the United States, even if foreign, can be prosecuted as entities under U.S. law. Individuals can likewise be prosecuted for crimes committed while working for corporations. A large and growing set of U.S. statutes criminalize business-related activities, including offenses committed outside the territory of the United States. And other major economies, like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, have developed their own approaches to corporate crime, which are very different from the U.S. approach, very different from one another, and rapidly changing. Are these developments just? Are they good for the economy? And as a practical matter, how can a businessperson avoid criminal liability? This course will familiarize legal and business professionals with the burgeoning body of criminal law that bears on their conduct. We will discuss the foundational rules of U.S. corporate criminal law, including entity liability and individual liability. We will discuss the current state of the field, focusing on recent developments in caselaw, internal Department of Justice policy, and major corporate and white-collar statutes. We will discuss non-U.S. jurisdictions' corporate criminal law regimes. We will discuss fundamental policy questions connected to corporate criminal law- questions of both justice and economic productivity. And we will discuss core criminal law principles, including the difference between criminal and civil law, the elements of a criminal offense, conspiracy liability, and complicity liability. The goal is to provide business and STEM professionals with a basic understanding of criminal law principles and familiarize them with the burgeoning body of criminal law that bears on their conduct.

Catalog Number: LAWSTUDY 930-0

Additional Course Information: MSL students only


Course History

Fall 2023
Title: Corporate Criminal Law
Faculty: Kleinfeld, Joshua (courses | profile)
Section: 1     Credits: 0.5
Capacity: 40     Actual: 3

Fall 2022
Title: Corporate Criminal Law
Faculty: Kleinfeld, Joshua (courses | profile)
Section: 1     Credits: 0.5
Capacity: 40     Actual: 2

Summer 2022
Title: Corporate Criminal Law
Faculty: Kleinfeld, Joshua (courses | profile)
Section: 1ON     Credits: 0.5
Capacity: 50     Actual: 23

Fall 2021
Title: Corporate Criminal Law
Faculty: Kleinfeld, Joshua (courses | profile)
Section: 1     Credits: 0.5
Capacity: 50     Actual: 32