Global Settlements

Article by Monty Raphael, Special Counsel, Peters & Peters Solicitors

Introduction

1. Overall global settlements are clearly desirable to save time and money. Delinquent businesses want to draw a line under their wrongdoing and move on. That is one approach, another is the view that global settlements are imposed by governments seeking to impose extra-territorial jurisdiction and "universal" standards. Certainly there are no universal standards, there is no global harmony in crime control, and no homogeneity of practices, concepts of criminality, jurisprudence or punishment.

2. Companies that trade globally, may bribe globally, pollute globally, price-fix globally. They can only hope that when the day of reckoning comes they will be able to negotiate with the strongest of the leading state powers in whose crosshair sights their conduct has appeared.