http://www.corporatecrimereporter.c...erredreport.htm

Crime Without Conviction: The Rise of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements.

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Corporate Crime Reporter is published 48 times a year. Subscribers include corporations, white collar defense lawyers, prosecutors, law school libraries, and large media outlets. Today, we are releasing this report that profiles thirty-four cases where prosecutors – confronted with solid evidence of corporate criminal wrongdoing – have chosen instead to enter into a non-prosecution agreement or a deferred prosecution agreement with the corporation. Seventeen (17) of the thirty-four cases were settled with non prosecution agreements. That is where the prosecutor agrees not to criminally prosecute the corporation in exchange for fines, cooperation, monitors, and changes in the corporate structure. The seventeen companies that settled their cases with non prosecution agreements are: American Electric Power (January 2005) Adelphia Communications (May 2005) Aetna (August 1993) Aurora Foods (January 2001) Bank of New York (November 2005) Coopers & Lybrand (September 1996) Hilfiger (August 2005) John Hancock Mutual Life (March 1994) Lazard Freres (October 1995) MCI (September 2005) Merrill Lynch (September 2003) Merrill Lynch (October 1995) Micrus Corporation (March 2005) Salomon Brothers (May 1992) Sequa (June 1993) Shell Oil (June 2005) Symbol Technologies (June 2004) The other seventeen (17) cases were settled with deferred prosecution agreements. Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the prosecutor charges the corporation with a crime, but agrees to drop the charges if the corporation fulfills its promises to the prosecutor. These promises include fines, cooperation – including the highly controversial waiver of attorney-client privilege – and monitors. The seventeen companies that settled their cases with deferred prosecution agreements are: American International Group (November 2004) America On-Line (December 2004) Amsouth Bancorp (October 2004) Arthur Andersen (April 1996) BDO Seidman (2003) Banco Popular De Puerto Rico (January 2003) Bristol Myers Squibb (June 2005) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (December 2003) Computer Associates (September 2004) InVision Technologies (December 2004) KPMG (August 2005) MCI (March 2004) Monsanto (January 2005) New York Racing Association (December 2003) PNC Financial (January 2003) Prudential Securities (October 1994) Sears (April 2001) This report finds that prosecutors have entered into twice as many non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements with major American corporations in the last four years (23 agreements between 2002 to 2005) than they have in the previous ten years (11 agreements between 1992 to 2001). And it raises the question – are these companies too big to indict, to big to convict? On our web site, the agreements themselves – the ones we could find – are linked to each of the case profiles. Increasingly, non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements have become the settlements of choice for prosecutors and corporate defense attorneys. And yet this trend to not criminally prosecute corporate criminals to conviction is the subject of little serious scrutiny by corporate crime defense lawyers, reporters, and law school professors. This despite the good chance that the rise of these agreements has undermined the general deterrent and adverse publicity impact that results from corporate crime prosecutions and convictions. Being a corporate criminal carries the heavy weight of adverse publicity – and the potential of being barred from doing business with federal, state and local governments. Also, individual citizens might shy away from doing business with convicted companies. Want to buy your automobile from a corporation convicted of criminal bribery? Maybe not. Want to own stock in an company convicted of dumping wastes at sea? Maybe not. Want to buy gasoline from an oil company felon? Perhaps I’ll drive across the street. It could very well be that the rise of these deferred and non prosecution agreement deals represents a victory for the forces of big business who for decades have been seeking to weaken or eliminate corporate criminal liability. The antipathy of business and business lawyers toward corporate criminal liability is deep and far reaching. Many advocates for big business openly advocate for the elimination of corporate criminal liability. One such person is Jeffrey Parker, a Professor of Law at George Mason University. Parker argues that corporate crime simply does not exist and can not exist. "Crime exists only in the mind of an individual," Parker said in an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter a couple of years ago. "Since a corporation has no mind, it can commit no crime,” Parker said. He argues that a since a corporation is not a living breathing human being, it should not be treated as a living breathing human being in the criminal law arena. But if a corporation is not a person for purposes of the criminal law, then why should it be is a person for the purposes of constitutional law – where it is considered a person and is granted protections, including – First Amendment guarantees of political speech and commercial speech, Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches, Fifth Amendment double jeopardy and liberty rights, and Sixth and Seventh Amendment rights to trial by jury? On paper and in their rhetoric, judges and prosecutors disagree with Parker and those business boosters who would do away with corporate criminal liability. The law on corporate criminal liability was settled early in the last century – in1906 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the New York Central case (New York Central & Hudson RR Co. v United States (1906) 212 US 481. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that to give corporations immunity from all punishment because of the doctrine that a corporation cannot commit a crime “would virtually take away the only means of effectively controlling the subject matter and correcting the abuses aimed at.” In 2002, in a speech to the American Bar Association, then Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, put it this way: “Large corporations develop their own methods and culture that guide employees thoughts and actions. That culture is a web of attitudes and practices that tends to replicate and perpetuate itself beyond the tenure of any individual manager. That culture may instill respect for the law or breed contempt and malfeasance. The organization itself must be held accountable for the culture and the conduct it promotes. Without this tool, the public would have no adequate deterrent to corporate criminal conduct because the culture that condoned, or at least acquiesced in, that behavior would be beyond the criminal law’s power to correct. Only by prosecuting the corporation itself can we insure systemic reform.” MORE ON THE LINK ....

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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture

Some interesting info I found to all the TAs in USA:

Georgia Issues Permit for Giant Coal Plant
http://www.uspirg.org/news-releases...nFnGxERwaJ85jGw

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The state issued a final permit today for a 1200 MW coal plant in Early County, Georgia. The proposed 1200 MW plant is larger than most US plants, and would be powered by dirty, last-generation technologies that would do little to secure Georgia’s energy future. “Georgia already has an incredibly dirty energy mix, this new plant will only make our air dirtier and our rivers more polluted,” said Jennette Gayer, policy advocate with Environment Georgia. “This plant will emit greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.3 million extra cars on the road and mercury equivalent to nearly 130,000 broken thermometers.” The original proponent for the plant, Longleaf Energy Associates, a branch of LS Power based in Princeton, New Jersey, recently merged with Dynegy making the company the number one coal-plant builder in the country. Annually the plant will: * Emit more than 240 pounds of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that makes its way into our water supply where it accumulates in fish and the people who eat them to the point that children and women of childbearing age are urged to limit fish consumption; * Release 6,400 tons of sulfur dioxide, a major ingredient in fine particle pollution, linked to premature death and respiratory and cardiovascular disease; * Release 3,700 tons of nitrogen dioxide, a major ingredient in the photochemical smog that plagues many cities across Georgia on summer days, triggering asthma attacks and sending people to the hospital; and * Emit nine million tons of carbon dioxide, the leading global warming gas which vast amounts of scientific evidence link to warming temperatures. “This coal plant does not have pollution controls that meet national standards. While Dynegy will save millions by refusing to use the best pollution controls, Georgia’s citizens will pay through increased hospital visits, premature deaths, and damaged crops,” said Justine Thompson with the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest, whose group will spearhead the legal efforts to stop the permitted coal plant. Commenting on the likelihood that much of the power will be sold to communities in Florida, Patty Durand, Executive Director of the Sierra Club noted that, “While the power may leave the state, the public health impacts will be felt by Georgia’s citizens for years to come. Coal fired power plants emit mercury which causes brain damage in babies, soot which causes heart attacks, and other pollutants that cause smog which, in turn, causes asthma and aggravates lung disease.” Bobby McLendon, President of Friends of the Chattahoochee, a group in Early County opposing the plant, said “We live here and breathe the air, and our children are going to breathe the air. I just don’t think that it’s right to endanger our community for the sake of a Texas company just seeking to increase its profits. There are real people here who will experience real and very serious consequences.”

http://www.uspirg.org/news-releases...NwFIwngW2aShhQw

Senate Environment Committee Narrowly Approves Clean Air Foe As Top EPA Air Official

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WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today voted 10-8 along party lines to confirm William Wehrum as Assistant Administrator for Air & Radiation at EPA, despite his clear record of working to weaken clean air protections at EPA and as a former lawyer representing electric utilities and other industries regulated under the Clean Air Act. In a surprise move, Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) voted with his Republican colleagues to confirm Mr. Wehrum; Senator Jim Jeffords (VT) joined the committee’s seven Democrats in opposing the nomination. “It’s very disappointing to see someone who has worked to dismantle clean air protections this close to being the nation’s top government official responsible for implementing the Clean Air Act. Given Mr. Wehrum’s record as the architect of two of the most significant environmental rollbacks of the Bush administration and numerous other actions, he is not fit for this job,” said U.S. PIRG Clean Air Advocate Emily Figdor. Air pollution remains a serious problem across the country. 152 million Americans – 52 percent of the U.S. population – live in counties with unsafe levels of air pollution. Air pollution causes numerous health problems, including asthma attacks, heart attacks, and other respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and cuts short the lives of tens of thousands of Americans each year. Mr. Wehrum was the main architect of the Bush administration’s mercury and New Source Review (NSR) rules, including the 2003 NSR rule recently stuck down in a unanimous, sharply worded decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Earlier this month, Mr. Wehrum recommended major changes to the way that EPA establishes National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) that would marginalize the role of EPA staff scientists and independent science advisors and consolidate power in the hands of EPA political appointees. The NAAQS are the backbone of the nation’s work to improve air quality. “We’re particularly disappointed that Senator Chafee voted to approve someone who has worked to undercut clean air protections. We commend the senators who voted against Mr. Wehrum today in order to protect the nation’s air quality, public health, and environment. We urge the full Senate to reject his confirmation,” concluded Figdor

New Air Quality Standards Reject Science, Leave Millions at Risk

http://www.uspirg.org/news-releases...zdMTeGJ_cuB8RiA

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WASHINGTON, DC—The Environmental Protection Agency today finalized new national air quality standards for particle “soot” pollution that ignore the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that the standards need to be substantially strengthened to protect Americans from this deadly air pollutant. National air quality standards are the backbone of the Clean Air Act and thus efforts to reduce air pollution nationwide. “We are extremely disappointed in today’s decision by the Bush administration to turn its back on the clear scientific facts about this deadly pollutant in order to once again do the bidding of big polluters. This decision will affect Americans’ health more than any other EPA decision this year, and the Bush administration completely dropped the ball,” said U.S. PIRG Clean Air & Energy Advocate Emily Figdor. EPA's own staff scientists and independent scientific advisors all recommended stronger standards than the ones announced today. U.S. PIRG, the American Lung Association, and numerous medical and public health groups had urged EPA to adopt much more protective fine particle standards, including an annual standard of 12 µg/m3 and a daily standard of 25 µg/m3. Instead, EPA failed to tighten the annual standard of 15 µg/m3 and made just a token change to the 24-hour standard that will have little impact on public health, lowering it to 35 µg/m3. The annual standard is based on how much fine particle pollution is safe to breathe on a regular basis, while the daily standard is based on how much fine particle pollution is safe to breathe on any one given day. “This pollutant endangers people’s lives, but the Bush administration threw out all of the scientific evidence in order to attempt to justify weak standards that will leave Americans gasping for breath,” said Figdor. Combustion sources such as power plants and diesel engines are the largest sources of fine particle pollution. The electric power, coal, oil, chemical, steel, mining, automotive and diesel engine industries all lobbied against stronger particle pollution standards. Particle pollution is the nation’s deadliest air pollutant and endangers people’s lives and health at levels well below those announced by EPA today. The tiny particles can bypass the body’s natural defenses, such as coughing and sneezing, and lodge deep in the lungs or even pass into the bloodstream, causing serious respiratory and cardiovascular problems, such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, and premature death. “Once again, the Bush administration put politics above science and the law to the detriment of public health and our environment,” concluded Figdor.

AND SO MUCH MORE on that website ... if you look hard and long enough

___________________
Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture