U-M business law expert argues for new, updated legal approaches to corporate crime

Theories of criminal law are 'starkly at odds with how business organizations actually operate in the 21st century'. FACULTY Q&A U.S. criminal law allows for a corporation to be considered responsible for a crime committed by an employee. That doctrine causes widely recognized issues, particularly a worry that it might be applied too broadly. Yet Will Thomas , a business law professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, argues in a new paper that the doctrine is also too narrow, making it overly difficult to prosecute companies for their illegal acts. In " Corporate Criminal Law Is Too Broad-Worse, It's Too Narrow ,” Thomas says the key problem is that the doctrine-called "respondeat superior” and rooted in a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1909-holds that a corporation can be guilty of a crime only if that crime can be attributed to a single person within the corporation. Thomas discusses the problem and explores ways to solve it. You argue the way the U.S. treats corporate crime is too broad and too narrow.