As we begin to prepare for a full schedule of events in 2024, starting with an event on Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy for Export Controls Violations on January 16, 2024, the NYU School of Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) is taking a moment to reflect on our busy Fall 2023 program. In this post: our third annual PCCE Directors’ Academy on September 21-22, 2023.
Keynote speaker Heather Lavallee, CEO, Voya Financial, Inc. (©Hollenshead: Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau)
by Steve Solow
Up until around a month ago, if you asked law professors and white collar defense counsel “what does it take for a company to be held criminally liable,” for most serious felonies, you would most likely get an answer that there needs to be a person, who worked for or on behalf of a company, who committed a crime in connection with their job. It’s the standard of respondeat superior, or vicarious liability, that has been in use at least since New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Co. v. United States was decided over one hundred years ago. 212 U.S. 481 (1909).
But a few weeks ago, in what might be an ironic move in light of the September memo from DAG Sally Yates (more on that in a moment), federal prosecutors succeeded in convicting Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) of criminal charges (knowing and willful criminal charges) using a theory of “corporate collective knowledge.” Continue reading