Irish Law Reform Commission Issues Paper on Regulatory Enforcement and Corporate Offences

Earlier this week, the Irish Law Reform Commission released an Issues Paper on Regulatory Enforcement and Corporate Offences:

"It addresses a wide range of questions concerning two related matters. The first is whether the supervisory and enforcement powers of the State’s main financial and economic regulators are adequate or need to be supplemented by, for example, civil financial sanctions and more effective co-ordination between regulators. The second is whether there are gaps in the criminal law that do not deal sufficiently with serious wrongdoing by corporate bodies, in particular regarding current fraud legislation and the general rules for attributing criminal liability to corporate bodies."

"The broad context for this Issues Paper can be traced to the financial and economic collapse that emerged in 2008. A number of studies discussed below have identified failings in regulatory supervision and enforcement in the years preceding the collapse. The close relationship between regulatory law and criminal law also brings into focus the effectiveness of existing criminal offences and the ways in which they might affect how companies behave and are regulated. Significant reforms to both the regulatory framework and criminal law have been enacted since 2008 but important areas remain to be addressed. This Issues Paper identifies a number of these on which the Commission now seeks views. Many of these can be linked to the financial and economic collapse of 2008, but a number potentially have a wider application beyond financial regulation, including those concerning fraud offences and the attribution of criminal liability to corporate bodies. To that extent, this Issues Paper addresses future risks as well as risks already identified as arising from the financial collapse of recent year."

The report examines how other jurisdictions like the UK, Australia and the US handle issues such as the enforcement powers of financial and economic regulators, the use of negotiated compliance agreements to avoid prosecution, cooperation between regulators, corporate fraud, "reckless trading", etc.