Editorial: Not your ordinary conference!
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-05-2023-302 |
| Published date | 18 April 2023 |
| Date | 18 April 2023 |
| Pages | 601-602 |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance,Financial risk/company failure,Financial crime |
| Author | G. Philip Rutledge |
Editorial: Not your
ordinary conference!
As a longtime attendee of the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime
(Symposium), I’m often asked if it ever accomplishes anything. The answer is an emphatic
“yes”but, to appreciateits contributions and their value, one must take the long view [1].
Over the past 40years, topics and ideas discussed at various Symposia oftenhave served
as a catalyst for changes in domestic law. However, when these changes take the form of
regulations or statutes, they generally are subject to relevant political, legislative and
executive processes. As a former financial services regulator in the USA advocating for
change, I perhaps more than most, appreciate that it takes time, often years, to create and
educate sufficient coalitions of support to make the changes a political priority and the
change a statutory reality.
I posit that the Symposium has two objectives. First, the Symposium is an informal, nonpolitical
assembly of individuals from various cultures, systems of government and professions who seek
like-minded individuals who are concernedabout the corrosive effects of financial crime on national
economies and civic institutions. Often, these individuals are responsible for the “heavy lifting”in
their respective agencies tasked with combatting financial crime.
In this regard, the Symposium has served as an important venue whereby former
Eastern European Communist regimes could be exposed to democratic legal and judicial
systems. Developing countries can discuss how to prevent financial crime, particularly in
the form of corruption, from undermining civil institutions that are key for continued
development and prosperity. To my thinking, the Symposium is a prime example of what
the British like to boast as their diplomatic“soft power.”
The second objective is facilitating discussion of mutual concerns and development of
methods to address the ever changingnature of, and actors involved in, financial crime. The
discussion and critical analysis that occurred over successive Symposia became the
foundation of what are now widely accepted methods used by governments to detect, deter
and combat financial crime.
In my opinion, one of the more important concepts incubated by the Symposium is the
now widespread use of various forms of the civil law to address financial crime. Whilst
criminal prosecutions are dependent on the discretion of prosecutors and meeting a high
burden of proof, the civil law can be tailoredto address specific problems, demands a lower
burden of proof of a preponderance of the evidence and can be exercised by a variety of
government actors. Also, civil law remedies of administrative and civil forfeiture and
disgorgement are bettersuited to a more expeditious recovery of the proceeds of crime.
The civil law also has been useful to give specialized government agencies powers to
impose meaningful sanctions outside the criminal justice system, particularly with respect
to errant participants in financial markets. In this regard, Symposia participants have
advocated use of the civil law to impose monetary fines in civil and administrative
proceedings [2], bar individuals who have committed financial crimes or misconduct from
serving as officers or directors of publiccompanies [3] and preventing individuals subject to
professional misconduct in financial services in one jurisdiction from being licensed in
another [4]. In the USA, the civil law now addresses all these situations and US laws have
been amended to permit US government agencies to pursue civil enforcement of securities
anti-fraud laws on an extraterritorialbasis [5].
Editorial
601
Journalof Financial Crime
Vol.30 No. 3, 2023
pp. 601-602
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1359-0790
DOI 10.1108/JFC-05-2023-302
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