Shaking the Legal Foundations of Corporate Power

Dr Dave Whyte
Tuesday 23 January, 4pm - 5.30pm, ARC/014
Production team: Kate Bowman-Worrall, Chloe Roughan, Yulia Brearley, Natalia Saeed, Rachel Atkinson, Tuva Hope and Mohamed Cherad

Seminar Synopsis

This paper analyses the historical development of legal categories that apply to corporations as a series of 'exceptional measures' in law that provide corporations with the capacity to commit crime with impunity. It argues that those legal foundations are precisely the same foundations upon which corporate power rests. It develops a typology of those legal exceptions along the following categories: the corporation as a form of public entity; the corporation as a form of private property; the corporation as a political citizen; and the corporation as a responsible actor. The paper uses this typology to show how, in a range of different ways, legal challenges to corporate crime tend to have the effect of shoring up, rather than challenging the legal foundations of corporate power. The paper therefore argues that a meaningful challenge to the capacity of corporations to commit crimes must challenge the legal foundations of corporate power.

Professor Dave Whyte

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David Whyte is Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Liverpool where he teaches and researches on the relationship between corporate power and law.

His most recent publications are The Violence of Austerity (ed. with Vickie Cooper, Pluto, 2017) and Corporate Human Rights Violations (with Stefanie Khourie, Routledge, 2017).

He is an Executive Committee member of the Institute of Employment Rights and an Advisory Board member of Corporate Watch.

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Please see the University campus map for the location of ARC/014 which is in the Alcuin Research Resource Centre. The building is opposite the Alcuin Teaching Block (Seebohm Rowntree Building) reception. The room is on the ground floor at the far end from the main entrance, around the corner, behind the lift. The closet public car park is Campus North car park. Parking costs £1 per hour and you can pay using coins or via a mobile phone via the RingGo parking. For information on public transport to the University please see the Travel and Transport webpages.