Introduction

A corporation is considered as a legal entity that permits a business to make use of capital
provided by stockholders. Sometimes it will commit the malpractices such as creating false
advertising, corruption, tax evasion, mispresentation, conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud and so on.
These are called corporate wrongdoing.

Corporate wrongdoing overlaps with white collar crime which was first introduced in the
social sciences by Edwin Sutherland in a 1939 presidential address to the American Sociological
Association. White collar crime was defined as “a crime committed by a person of respectability
and high social status in the course of his occupation” (Sutherland, 1940). White collar crime is
also corporate crime when it is done by a member of top management. Sutherland’s address was
a key as it was the first major statement on white collar crime in academic criminology.
Sutherland stated that while “crime in the streets” draws headlines and catches the police
attention, the extensive and far more costly “crime in the suites” proceeds relatively overlooked.
In spite of that corporate wrongdoing cost several times more than other crimes put together,
most of the cases are not treated under the criminal law as if it is just an insignificant matter.
Usually, corporate crime is seen as a sociological rather than a legal entity.

As saying goes, “nothing could be further from the truth”, in fact, history is abounding
with cases of past corporate wrongdoing. Here are some early history of capitalism and the
Industrial Revolution. The fortunes were made by unblushing and also unbridled “robber
barons,” who viewed the state and laws as negotiable nuisances. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the
railroad magnate, when asked whether he was concerned with the legality of one of his
operations, “Law! What do I care about Law.Hain’t I got the power?” he answered. (quoted in
Browning &Gerassi, 1980, p. 201).

Now we will discuss some example of corporate wrongdoing, the argument for and
against to identify and deal with such conduct. What are the strategies, mechanism can be used to
deal with the problem? Isn’t an important issue?