Foreword

• Author: Stephen Vasciannie
• Profession: Professor
• Pages: 21-23

FOREWORD

Risky Business: Perspectives on Corporate Misconduct combines

breadth and depth. It covers a signicant range of issues, from

corruption and corporate criminal liability in the domestic sphere,

to eorts on the international plane to suppress the nancing of

terrorist activities. As the title indicates, however, its core concern is

the behaviour of nancial businesses, a concern which has assumed

increasing prominence in the much-described era of globalisation. In

this era, the putative benets of globalisation – including increased

employment, the lowering of economic boundaries between and

among States, and the enhancement of productive capacity – have

prompted Governments in dierent parts of the world to embrace the

neoliberal orthodoxy in favour of free markets and limited regulation.

However, with the passage of time, experience has helped to reiterate

the point that the quest for free markets must be tempered by careful

regulation of corporate behaviour. e free market does not imply

freedom to violate the law.

e essays in this publication cover at least four dierent

jurisdictions. ere are, of course, items on international law, and at

the municipal level aspects of the laws of the United States, United

Kingdom, Jamaica and the Bahamas are given careful treatment. In

some essays, too, there are useful assessments of regional perspectives on

questions concerning corporate misconduct. Particularly with respect

to items on international law and regional eorts to address issues of

corporate misconduct, this book emphasises that questions in this

area are best considered as part of the transnational eort to overcome

criminal activity. Money laundering, terrorist nancing and the tracing

of certain assets are often international in their scope and impact: they

need to be tackled by international means. Although this point is

now well-accepted in the literature and language of international law,