Legal News

Will ?Shaming? Punishments Take Hold in Corporate America?

By Ashby Jones

Last June, we blogged about an interesting sentence handed down by a New York federal judge — he ordered a former pharma executive convicted of making false statements to regulators to write a book about his experiences connected to the case.

Is the shaming movement catching on? According to a recent NPR story, the answer might be yes — and shaming might be moving into the corporate arena. According to the story: “Increasingly, companies that plead guilty to crimes that harm the community - polluting, for example - are being required to publish an apology as part of their punishment.”

Take, for instance, a Massachusetts ferry operator called The Rockmore Co. The company reportedly paid a “steep fine” for polluting Massachusetts waters, but also was forced to take out an ad in the Boston Herald. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Read the ad:

Our company has discharged human waste directly into coastal Massachusetts waters.

Former federal prosecutor Michael Sullivan, who has helped increase the use of these kinds of sanctions in Massachusetts, told NPR that the goal is deterrence, not humiliation.

And is it a good thing?

Ohio State law prof and sentencing expert Doug Berman told NPR that it’s probably too soon to know if they work. But, he said, shaming punishments for companies don’t raise some of the same concerns they do when dealing with individuals.

“Corporations don’t feel,” he says. “There are times when we do want to put the hurt on a corporation, especially if it’s a corporation who hurt the community.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 10, 2010 (boomark / email).