The rise and globalization of negotiated settlements : how an American procedure, the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA)‎, became a transnational key tool to fight transnational corporate crimes \

Abstract EN

The use of corporate deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) to fight corporate crimes in the USA, and more recently in other countries, has raised some challenges.

However, the benefits of these procedures are significant when compared to the lengthy and costly ways of “traditional” justice.

DPAs provide governments with limited resources a method to more efficiently resolve white-collar criminal charges through the developing concept of “negotiated justice.” The development of procedures similar to the American DPA in other jurisdictions, notably the UK and other countries of common law tradition, as well as in some civil law jurisdictions such as France, has created a new legal paradigm in recent years.

Even the European Union is building a transnational enforcement system, underscoring the necessity of adopting comparable provisions in domestic laws worldwide.

As illustrated in an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) survey published in March 2019, the diversity of judicial systems around the world precludes a “one size fits all” approach for a procedure to fight corporate crimes.

However, coordinated prosecutions among agencies of different jurisdictions and the creation of international prosecutorial bodies and enforcement are signs of the emergence of a new transnational judicial system.

This research seeks to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness and desirability of these tools as a means of combating corporate crimes.