The EU’s Fight against Corporate Financial Crime: State of Affairs and Future Potential

Considering the European Union’s efforts to tackle various forms of financial crime more effectively, especially since the financial crisis of 2008, one would expect that the Union has also been strengthening its grip on national law with respect to corporate financial crime. Instead, this Article finds that the EU approach to corporate financial crime has actually not evolved that much over the past two decades. Moreover, this Article demonstrates that EU law still fails to sufficiently take into account the specific features of corporate entities (as opposed to individuals), as well as to fully exploit the potential strengths of a criminal law approach, as opposed to an administrative or civil law approach. In the author’s view, the EU should more carefully consider the objectives and strengths of different kinds of enforcement mechanisms and adopt a more coherent approach, particularly with respect to corporations. Furthermore, when it comes to corporate punishment, the EU seemingly lacks ambition and creativity. EU legal instruments focus strongly on fines while insufficiently exploring other, potentially more adequate sanctions to achieve certain punishment goals. Ultimately, this may undermine the effectiveness of the EU’s fight against corporate financial crime.