Discussion 5
ISSUE: Whether or not the civil court is in the best legal remedy that will enable the court to help the investors to recover the compensation for the investors
RULE: In order to recover compensation for investor for corporate misconduct performed by the officers, the SEC can file civil cases before civil courts to force settlements that bring financial punishment together with corrective action (Briggs, 2011, p. 103).
ANALYSIS: It will be easier to recover compensation for investors if the case is filed before the civil court because the plaintiffs shall only be required to prove preponderance of evidence that the corporate officers engaged in misconduct. For a criminal corporation to be held liable for criminal action, the prosecutor is required to prove the criminal conduct of the officer, such as a high level manager. Since proving a criminal case can be challenging, costly and will require a longer time to prosecute before the investors can be compensated, it is more practical to file a civil case because it is easier to prove and can bring financial punishment against the erring corporate officers. This will result to compensation for the investors.
CONCLUSION: It is more advisable to file the civil suit before the civil court because of the difficulty of proving civil cases against businesses and corporations since the government has the tendency to rely on other means of regulation. Such as in the case of regulating security business and Wall Street, the government can depend on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to file a case against a corporation and investigate the corporate officers for misconduct since the agency does not have a criminal authority (Briggs, 2011).
References
Briggs, S. (2011). Criminology for Dummies. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
