Sanction Accumulation in the Context of Business Offending: The Full Force of the Law?

Abstract

Over the past thirty years or so the regulation of business cartels in an international context has provided an interesting site for the application of legal sanctions—both criminal law and otherwise, both penal and otherwise—in a way which is wide-ranging and with some impressive accumulation in quantity, although without much systematic and considered reflection on the theoretical basis or practical impact of this practice. From the point of view of both policy and justice, the calculation and critical assessment of such sanction accumulation might appear to be an important and worthwhile exercise. Yet the theory and the methodology of such an assessment appears to be insufficiently considered and worked out. It will be argued here that this is a matter which deserves some reflection and clarification, with some endeavour to work out principle and method for the purpose of calculating sanction accumulation and the matching of the latter with victimhood in this context.