In an opinion piece that ran in both the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune last week titled Five Myths About White Collar Crime, Sullivan & Cromwell partner Nicolas Bourtin tries to make the point that, contrary to popular myth, the federal government is in fact tough on white collar crime.
And through one lens, the lens Bourtin looks through, he’s right. There is a lot of prosecution of white collar crime – crime by committed less powerful banks and corporations and their executives.
But as you move up the food chain – to the powerful corporations represented by the likes of Sullivan & Cromwell and the other elite corporate criminal defense law firms – you start to see a different picture.
Over the last thirty years or so, for example, about 3,000 companies in the United States have entered into settlements with the federal government to resolve criminal investigations.
About 2,500 of them have pled guilty. The vast majority of the companies forced to plead guilty are smaller less powerful companies.
— source corporatecrimereporter.com | Nov 9, 2017