Financial crime and knowledge workers: An empirical study of defense lawyers and white-collar criminals
Abstract
Financial Crime and Knowledge Workers examines the role of lawyers in court cases involving white-collar crimes, revealing fresh insights into the relationship between a lawyer's stature and a case's potential verdict.
... Complaining is symbolic defense, where the objective is to mobilize sympathy for the white-collar client (Gottschalk 2014). The less serious an offender is able to make his or her offense in the public domain, the less willingness to punish the offender. ...
... What Podgor (2007) found to be the most interesting aspect of Sutherland's (1983) work is that a scholar needed to proclaim that crime committed by a member of the upper socioeconomic class was in fact crime that should be prosecuted. When prosecuted in court, white-collar defendants have paid defense lawyers who tend to be specialists in financial crime, while prosecutors and judges tend to be generalists (Gottschalk 2014). ...
... The third and final level is the Supreme Court in the capital Oslo. While court proceedings for traditional street crime tend to last for some days, court proceedings for white-collar crime tend to last for some months (Gottschalk 2014). ...
The theory of convenience suggests that white-collar offenders find it convenient to use illegitimate gain to explore possibilities and avoid threats. Furthermore, there is convenient access to resources to commit and financial crime, and offenders can conveniently justify crime and neutralize guilt feelings. This article extends the concept of convenience into the concept of inconvenience when white-collar offenders face detection, investigation, conviction, and incarceration. The extent of inconvenience is dependent on a number of issues such as public opinion about seriousness of wrongdoing, fraud examinations versus police investigations, symbolic defense by attorneys, and the special sensitivity hypothesis versus the special resilience hypothesis. While facing the criminal justice system is never convenient for the offender, the extent of inconvenience might limit itself and partly find compensation by a number of circumstances on the way from crime detection to release from prison.
... Therefore we find various criminal activities classified as financial crimes (Picket & Picket, 2002). Petter Gottschalk classifies financial crimes into 4 main categories, namely Fraud Crime, Theft Crime, Manipulation Crime and Corruption Crime (Gottschalk, 2014). ...
This paper discusses the concept of criminal liability for beneficial owners who misuse corporations to commit criminal acts or corporations used as vehicles or means (corporate vehicles) to hide or disguise the proceeds of their crimes. The emphasis used in exploring the problem is on a conceptual, historical and comparative approach through regulations, court decisions and a review of literature as well as a Forum Group Discussion (FGD) related to Beneficiary Owners to discuss how accountability to beneficial owners and what criminal acts can be categorized as a crime committed by the beneficial owner. This paper concludes to hold criminally accountable beneficial owners by conducting investigations into corporations and implementing the Principle of Recognizing Service Users by conducting Due Diligence and if necessary using Enhanced Due Diligence. Criminal acts that can be categorized as being committed by Beneficiaries are not only money laundering and terrorism financing but can be expanded to criminal acts related to Corporations and aimed at obtaining economic benefits.
... For instance, Bernard Madoff was also sentenced for money laundering ( Gottschalk, 2017) and the cases in which this offense was committed without the involvement of organized crime are many ( Friedrichs, 2010;Geis, 2011;Gerber, Jensen, & Kubena, 2007). In fact, all kind of profit-motivated crimes, such as embezzlement, fraud, misappropriation and corruption, imply money laundering ( Gottschalk, 2014). 6 In the following, we indicate as source crimes the crimes other than money laundering. ...
This paper examines the economy's vulnerability to money laundering in a given region. Assuming that criminals are rational investors who take into account risks and returns of both legal and illegal investments, we define vulnerability as a function of well-identified drivers. Proxies of these variables are used to empirically investigate the relationship between the institutional/economic characteristics of Italian provinces and their vulnerability to money laundering in the 2008-2013 period. We focus on the impact of the reporting of suspicious transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit, by using instrumental variables to address endogeneity in the relationship between the number of reports made and our measure of vulnerability. Results highlight positive effects of the institutional policies adopted to fight money laundering, especially as far as the reporting of suspicious transactions is concerned. Further dimensions of local vulnerability are outlined: time-invariant heterogeneity across provinces, showing that certain areas are more systematically vulnerable because of persistent local features that cannot be individually identified; and idiosyncratic vulnerability, which pinpoints the fact that some provinces have been periodically subject to abnormally intense money-laundering activity.
Social movement scholars have demonstrated that activists can increase mobilizing attitudes by articulating collective action frames. However, these studies have left unresolved whether and under which conditions state officials such as prosecutors can effectively use collective action frames to trigger mobilizing attitudes. This study draws on an experiment in Brazil to test the effect of different components of collective action frames articulated by prosecutors: identity, agency, urgency, and injustice frames that highlight the material or immaterial consequences of the issue. Respondents were randomly assigned to watch videos that simulated a press conference in which prosecutors discussed a corruption investigation and called for public support using different frames. Although social movement studies would lead us to expect framing components to effectively trigger mobilizing attitudes, results revealed that none of the frames consistently and significantly affected willingness to mobilize against corruption or support for bills that strengthen or weaken prosecutors’ anticorruption efforts.
Corporate internal investigations play a crucial role in uncovering misconduct and wrongdoing within organizations, aiming to clarify events, identify causes, and evaluate failures. This study reviews publicly available internal investigation reports, focusing on two key aspects: assessing offender convenience and examination maturity. Investigators navigate through various stages of investigation maturity, from activity-oriented to value-oriented approaches, seeking answers to questions ranging from “what happened?” to “why did it happen?” The analysis reveals common pitfalls, such as superficial investigations and biased reporting, while highlighting the importance of skepticism and thoroughness in assessment. Moreover, the study sheds light on the potential consequences of flawed investigations, emphasizing the need for transparency and accountability.
This article starts with a brief review of law firm business. Next, crime convenience theory is applied to the case by identifying relevant convenience themes for financial motive, organizational opportunity, and personal willingness. Then, a brief application of crime signal detection theory is presented. In the discussion, governance in the form of restrictions based on convenience theory is discussed. Prevention and detection of wrongdoing is at the core of governance to secure compliance with laws, regulations, rules, and guidelines. The lack of transparency among stakeholders in the case of the law firm is detrimental to governance. The discourse and rituals of transparency, account-giving, and verification are central to governance.
The theory of convenience serves as an explanation for the occurrence of white-collar crime. In this chapter, the white-collar crime phenomenon is explored. This book applies the offender-based perspective on white-collar crime, where the offender is characterized by the privileged position in society. Edwin Sutherland was an important researcher who first described the white-collar crime phenomenon. The magnitude of white-collar crime is addressed in this chapter, as well as the seriousness of white-collar offenses. The chapter presents a typical profile of white-collar offenders as well as autobiographies by some offenders.
Some members of the upper echelon in society violate laws whenever they feel necessary. They have access to resources to commit and conceal financial crime while they deny the guilty mind. Autobiographies by convicted white-collar offenders are an interesting source of information to understand motives, opportunities, and willingness for deviant behaviors. This research applies the theory of convenience to study the autobiography of a convicted chairman of the board in Norway. While claiming corporate crime for the benefit of the business, he actually carried out occupational crime to benefit himself. As an entrepreneur, he felt entitled to do whatever he considered necessary. He suffered from narcissistic identification, where there is little difference between personal money and company money.
The activity of private investigations by fraud examiners is a business of lawyers, auditors, and other professionals who investigate suspicions of financial crime by white-collar criminals. This paper presents results from an empirical study of investigation reports. The available sample consists of 28 reports written mostly by auditing firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PwC. The blame game can occur at two stages in a private investigation. First, the mandate formulated by a client may point investigators in a specific direction. Next, investigators sometimes suffer from a tunnel view of predetermined opinions. In the sample of 28 investigations reports, more than half of them involve potential blame game victims. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
