[corp-focus] No More Amnesty

[robert weissman]

No More Amnesty
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

No more amnesty.

What's the first issue that came to your mind?

Right.

Immigration.

But what about corporate crime?

For years now, major American corporations have committed serious crimes.

And the government has responded with effective amnesty.

It's not called amnesty, of course.

It's called deferred prosecution.

Or non-prosecution.

But it is amnesty nonetheless.

The corporation commits the crime.

The corporation admits that it engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

But to avoid the repercussions of a guilty plea, the corporation is
allowed to enter into an non-prosecution agreement or a deferred
prosecution agreement, whereby the government says -- hey, you're a big
corporation, if we convict you of this crime, your company could be
driven out of business, innocent shareholders will be hurt, innocent
workers will be hurt.

So, we won't convict you of a crime.

Amnesty.

Yes, the corporation agrees to pay fines.

Yes, the corporation agrees to change its ways.

But the corporation is allowed to stay in the country, so to speak,
after crossing the line.

Do you hear about this corporate amnesty on Lou Dobbs?

No, you do not.

Do you hear Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, -- the leader of the
no-amnesty-for-dark-skinned-people brigade (the word amnesty appears on
his web site maybe 300 times) -- ranting and raving about corporate
amnesty?

No, you do not.

Does Bill O'Reilly, corporate shill that he is, rant and rave about
corporate amnesty?

He does not.

Why not?

If respect for law and order is to mean anything, it is to mean respect
for law and order across the board.

Not just for dark-skinned people from south of the border.

But blink an eye, and when you open it, a major American corporation
will be cutting some kind of amnesty deal with the federal government.

Even before the coffee had a chance to kick in this morning, the Wall
Street Journal was reporting that Boeing is about to get a deferred
prosecution deal to settle two major federal criminal investigations.

Quoting unnamed sources, the Journal reported that Boeing "would avoid
pleading guilty to any specific charges in both cases while admitting
wrongdoing under what is known as a deferred prosecution agreement."

According to the report, the settlement agreement would resolve
longstanding allegations that Boeing improperly acquired thousands of
pages of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s proprietary documents dealing with
rocket programs and illegally recruited a senior U.S. Air Force
acquisition official while she still had oversight of billions of
dollars in other Boeing contracts.

These types of deferred prosecution agreements -- and their cousins,
non-prosecution agreements -- have become the settlement vehicle of
choice for federal prosecutors facing down powerful U.S. corporations.

If you are representing a Fortune 500 company before the government, and
you can't get one of these, you are either facing a prosecutor out of
touch with the times, or the president of the company should fire you.

That's how prevalent this amnesty program has become.

In a report released in December 2005, Corporate Crime Reporter
documented the rise of these types of agreements.

At that point, the report had tallied 36 such agreements.

Since then, Corporate Crime Reporter has documented an additional eight
such agreements. That makes the total 44.

Boeing would make 45.

It just strikes us as a bit hypocritical to rant and rave about people
named Garcia, Martinez, Lopez, Hernandez, Gonzales, Perez, Sanchez,
Rivera and Ramirez -- when they cross the line.

But then if your name is Boeing, Prudential, Hilfiger, Shell Oil,
Solomon Brothers, Aetna, KPMG, Monsanto, Sears or Bristol Myers Squibb
-- and you commit a crime -- there is no ranting and raving -- only
cheering from Wall Street.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert Weissman is
editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
<http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>. Mokhiber and Weissman are
co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of
Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2006/000230.html>