Chapter Outline
5.1 Common Business Crimes
5.2 Civil vs. Criminal Liability
Introduction
Learning Outcome
•
Analyze sources of criminal exposure in business.
5.1
Common Business Crimes
People rarely think about their conduct at work as being potentially illegal, or that jail time could result from
poor workplace decisions. However, this fact is the reality. Organizations are fined, and executives are
sentenced to jail, when business laws are broken. Many of the workplace violations are nonviolent crimes,
such as fraud, property crimes, or drug- or alcohol-related infractions. Regardless of the level of violence or
the employee’s motivation for committing the crime, breaking the law can lead to negative consequences for
the business, its employees, and its customers.
Constitutional Authority to Regulate Business
Congress is given the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and
with the Indian Tribes.” Our forefathers wanted to facilitate easier trade among the states by allowing
Congress to adopt rules that could be uniformly applied. The theory was that if commercial enterprises knew
that they would be dealing with essentially the same rules across the nation, it would be much easier to run
Figure 5.1 Lady Justice by Arend Ode(Image Credit: AJEL/ pixabay/ Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))
5
Criminal Liability