Being the Boss Is Not a Crime
One day soon, a CEO of a large corporation will be charged with homicide after a customer or worker dies in a mishap, even if the executive had no direct role in the incident and wasn't aware of the risk.
It could be a drug company CEO, like the poor guy from Merck, Raymond Gilmartin, who sat quietly while a government official, speaking with the authority of the Food and Drug Administration, told a Congressional committee that, based on a back of the envelope calculation, Merck had caused 27,785 fatal heart problems with its pain reliever Vioxx.
It could be Gordon Bethune , retiring CEO of Continental Airlines, who has been called by a French magistrate to appear in March in the investigation of the crash of the Concorde. A small piece of metal that fell off a Continental jet contributed to a catastrophic tire puncture as the Concorde was rolling toward takeoff. The piece was made of ultra-hard titanium, although the FAA had not authorized the use of titanium, according to French investigators.
Here's the problem: Corporate acts have traditionally been punished with fines, but fines just end up punishing a company's shareholders, who themselves may be victims of management misbehavior. Executives seem to be buying indulgences with their shareholders' money; punishment for bad acts looks like just another cost of doing business.
This dilemma partly explains a global push to bring more charges of "corporate manslaughter" against companies, as well as more attempts to make top executives themselves criminally liable. On the flipside, theories of corporate criminality have the potential to turn CEOs into scapegoats for the failings of underlings or systems beyond their effective control. And receding ever further is the classic criminal prerequisite of a guilty mind knowingly committing a wrongful act.
Little noticed by the wider public but frightening to corporate lawyers was the conviction last September of four executives charged in connection with a runway collision in the fog at Milan's Linate airport that killed 118 people in 2001.
A corporate jet had turned onto the wrong taxiway in the fog, and a ground radar system that might have alerted controllers to the error had been broken for a year. Never mind that many airports in advanced countries get by without ground radar. Francesco Federico, who oversaw Milan's two airports for Italy's civil aviation agency, was sentenced to six and a half years for this "crime." Sandro Gualano, chief executive of Italy's air-traffic system, also received six and a half years. The airport's chief executive and a member of its tower staff each received eight-year sentences.
In Greece, throwing shipping executives in jail after accidents at sea has become, if not commonplace, at least accepted. And a French criminal prosecutor has already produced a 237-page report on the Concorde accident, calling in not just Mr. Bethune but also current Continental CEO Larry Kellner and three technical personnel for questioning.
U.S. executives can count their blessings. Prosecutions for corporate manslaughter have remained rare in America even amid periodic uproars over exploding gas tanks and defective drugs. If a name-brand CEO were to be hauled up on manslaughter charges these days, the scene would most likely be an overseas court.
For one thing, so huge are the sums available through punitive damages in the U.S. civil legal system that few clamor for criminal prosecution as well. And juries, while happy to shuffle large sums around, have not been keen on criminalizing accidents. Miami's State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle brought 110 charges of felony murder and 110 charges of manslaughter against SabreTech, a maintenance contractor implicated in the 1996 ValuJet crash. When all was said and done, however, the company ended up pleading no contest to a single count of mishandling hazardous waste.
Of course, if your place of business is the globe, U.S. restraint affords only modest comfort. Japan is already holding a former CEO of truck maker Mitsubishi Fuso criminally responsible for a death attributed to a defective vehicle clutch. Canada and Australia in the past two years have enacted new laws to make it easier to prosecute corporate manslaughter.
All eyes now are on Tony Blair's British Labour government, which has dithered for a decade over whether to keep a campaign promise to introduce a tough new law after a series of notorious rail and ferry tragedies. Dropped was a plan to provide for life sentences for guilty executives, then any liability at all for individuals. Asserted the government: "Targeting individual directors or managers would just create scapegoats and that would not be in the interests of justice." Hospitals, schools and other non-business enterprises were also eventually exempted from the proposed law, and then the bill itself mysteriously was never introduced last year despite being touted by the Queen.
Now pressure is building again. The Labourites face likely election in May. In September, a judge threw out charges against executives of Railtrack, operator of the country's rail infrastructure, in a derailment that killed four. Still to come is the trial of five more executives and an engineering firm involved in track maintenance. If their case ends in acquittal or charges being dismissed, the Crown will have achieved a perfect record of failure in pressing criminal charges in four landmark corporate manslaughter cases since 1990.
Said Railtrack's former Chief Executive Gerald Corbett after he was cleared: "Being the boss in itself is not a crime."
It will be, however, if prosecutors make headway with claims increasingly built on the idea that employees acted badly because of a "corporate culture," and the CEO is culpable because his or her job is to shape the culture.
做老板本身并不是罪
编者按：本文作者詹金斯先生是《华尔街日报》编委会成员，也是每周专栏《商业世界》的作者
用不了多久，就会有那么一天，如果一位客户或者员工突遭不幸去世，那么公司的首席执行长就会被指控犯有谋杀罪，即使他与这起事故没有直接关系，对意外风险毫无所知也是枉然。
这可能会是一家制药公司的首席执行长，就像默克公司(Merck)的倒霉蛋雷蒙德?吉尔马丁(Raymond Gilmartin)。代表美国食品和药物管理局(Food and Drug Administration, 简称FDA)的政府官员在国会委员会面前慷慨陈词之时，他只能静静地坐在那儿听著。FDA称，根据一组计算数据，默克所产止痛药Vioxx已经导致27,785名患者因心脏病去世。
他也可能是大陆航空(Continental Airlines)已经退休的首席执行长戈登?贝休恩(Gordon Bethune)。去年三月，调查一起协和(Concorde)飞机空难的法国官员传唤贝休恩。调查发现，这架协和飞机准备降落时，大陆航空一家喷气式飞机上掉落的一小块金属物质打在协和飞机的轮胎上，造成了灾难性的后果。这位法国调查官说，这片金属是硬度超高的钛金属，但美国航空管理局(FAA)并未授权允许使用这种金属。
问题就在这里：公司行为不当往往都是罚款了事，但罚款最终来自股东的腰包，而股东本来就可能是管理层决策不当的受害者了。管理人员似乎在用股东的钱为自己买来为所欲为的空间；而罚款看上去不过是一笔生意的成本。
这种尴尬局面部分揭示了全球范围内兴起的对“公司杀人罪”的指控，还有越来越多的将公司高层管理人员推上被告席的原因。但从另一方面来看，企业犯罪理论也有可能让首席执行长们成为替罪羊，为那些并不在他们有效控制范围内的下属的错误，或者公司结构体制的缺陷承担责任。再退一步说，传统定罪的先决条件应是：知法犯法。
还没有在公众当中引起广泛关注，但让公司律师恐慌不已的是去年9月份四名管理人员被判有罪的案子，事关2001年米兰Linate机场导致118人丧生的大雾撞机惨剧。
一架公司飞机在雾霭中进入了错误的跑道，地面雷达系统本来能够向塔台发出警告，但系统已经坏了一年没有维修。尽管很多发达国家的许多机场都没有配备地面雷达系统，但意大利民用航空管理局负责米兰两个机场的弗朗切斯科?费代里科(Francesco Federico)被判有罪，监禁六年半。意大利空中交通系统主管山德罗?瓜拉诺(Sandro Gualano)也被判入狱六年半。Linate机场首席执行长和一位塔台控制人员各自被判八年监禁。
在希腊，航运公司高管因事故被判入狱的结果，如果算不得平常，至少也是大家都可以接受的事情了。一位法国刑事检察官已经就协和空难撰写了长达237页的调查报告，除了上面提到的贝休恩，他还要召唤大陆航空现任首席执行长拉里?凯尔纳(Larry Kellner)和三位技师接受质询。
美国公司高管还可以自感庆幸，虽然不时发生油箱爆炸和药物缺陷事故，对“公司杀人罪”的起诉在美国还是很少见的。如果哪家知名企业的首席执行长因杀人罪名被起诉，那多半都是外国法庭上的情形。
原因之一就是，通过美国的民事诉讼体系，可以得到天价般的惩罚性损失赔偿，所以很少会诉诸刑事检察。陪审团呢，一方面对大笔赔偿感到满意，另一方面对刑事诉讼也不感兴趣。迈阿密的州检察官凯瑟琳?费尔南德斯?朗德尔(Katherine Fernandez Rundle)针对卷入1996年ValuJet空难的维修合约商SabreTech提出110项谋杀重罪和110项一般杀人罪指控。但是，该说的说尽，该做的做完，SabreTech最后只承认了一项指控，那就是有毒废物处理不当。
当然，如果一家公司的业务遍布全球，美国的情况只能是不痛不痒的一种安慰。日本已经将卡车生产商三菱扶桑(Mitsubishi Fuso)前任首席执行长刑事拘留，认为他应该对一起卡车离合器故障致人死亡事件负责。这两年，加拿大和澳大利亚也颁布了不少新法律，使起诉公司杀人罪更加容易了。
人们的目光现在都集中在托尼?布莱尔(Tony Blair)的工党政府身上。近十年来，工党政府一直犹豫不决，不知道该不该继续呼吁推行一部更严格的新法案。英国曾发生过一系列严重的火车和轮渡事故惨剧。先是搁置了一项判决有罪的公司高管终生监禁的计划，接著就是任何个人都不必承认任何责任的提议。政府声称：追究个别董事或者经理的责任只会牵出一批替罪羊，也不符合公正的利益。医院、学校和其他非商业实体最终都会排除在议案管辖范围之外。然而，尽管得到女王本人的大力支持，这项法案去年仍然没有颁布实施，一切令人生疑。
现在政府身上的压力越来越大。工党成员今年5月可能要面临选举。去年9月，一位法官在列车出轨事故导致四人死亡的案件审理过程中，针对英国铁路基础设施运营商Railtrack的管理人士提出一系列指控。接下来还有审讯另外五名公司高管和参与轨道维修的一家工程公司。如果他们被判无罪，或者指控均被撤销，那么英国政府就会创下记录，1990年以来四大公司杀人案均未能提出刑事指控。
Railtrack前任首席执行长杰拉尔德?科尔贝特(Gerald Corbett)在被释放后说：“做老板本身并不是罪。”
但是，如果检察官们日益坚信员工行为不当是因为“企业文化”不当，而首席执行长们对“企业文化”的形成负有责任，所以要为员工的错误负责，那么身为老板可就是一项罪责了。
