Corporations Law Enforcement Strategies In Australia: The Influence of Professional,Corporate and Bureaucratic Cultures

Abstract

In the 1990s, Australia saw a heated debate concerning corporate law enforcement and regulatory strategies. This debate came to a head in 1992 with the public clash between the Chairman of the Australian Securities Commission and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. This eventually lead to the intervention of the Commonwealth Attorney-General directing the Commission to adopt a greater focus upon criminal prosecutions. This article argues that Australian corporate law has evolved within what might be described as a civil law culture, so that attempts to impose criminal law concepts and enforcement strategies are not likely to be as effective as their proponents might expect. Based upon a series of 130 interviews with judges, regulators, prosecutors and professional advisers, the article suggests that an appropriate corporate regulatory mix must include a range of other social control mechanisms other than reliance upon the criminal law and that heavy reliance upon the criminal is unlikely to be very effective in the context of Corporations Act breaches.

Keywords: corporate law enforcement, regulatory policy, corporate crime

JEL Classification: K22, K14, K41, K42