Corporations and Transnational Crime

Abstract

This chapter explores historical origins of business related crime, to get a better understanding of the historical context of the involvement of corporations in transnational crime, which is often presented as a recent product of globalization. Often, globalization is presented as a cause for (the observed increase of) transnational corporate crime. However, the historical cases discussed in this chapter show that early accounts of corporate crime were also transnational. This raises the questions whether globalization is new and whether it is the cause of a transnationalization of corporate crime. This chapter discusses some historical—pre-World War II—accounts of business related crime, to illustrate that it is not a strictly contemporary phenomenon. Second, corporate complicity to transnational organized crime will be discussed, as the latter seems a product of the twentieth century. Third, several contemporary forms of corporate transnational crime and corporate complicity to organized crime are discussed to further illustrate the blurrification of corporate and organized crime: money laundering, corruption, environmental crime, and gross human rights violations. The chapter concludes with the lessons history teaches about the transnationality of corporate crime and recommendations for future research.