This article deals with formal responses to deviance committed by the transnational private security actors in the context of military operations. Drawing from an analysis of lawsuits against U.S. private military companies (CMP) and their employees during the conflict in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, its objective is to capture the origin, process and outcome of these proceedings in order to better understand the future regulation of the industry. Our methodological approach is inductive and relies on actual proceedings. The data reflects firstly the extreme difficulty for victims to pursue their offenders and, in rare cases, to obtain a guilty verdict. Secondly, the analysis suggests that there are two kinds of deviance likely to trigger the justice system : cases of very serious violence (and usually highly publicized) committed against Iraqi civilians ; and situations where victims are U.S. soldiers or CMP employees who complain of negligence by a company. Following these findings, we consider the future of the industry regulation of transnational private security, and in particular its ability to regulate itself.