In other words, the prosecution for punishing a corporation, both after a conviction and in the framework of arrangements without conviction, takes into account the question of whether the organizer who commits the offense, by virtue of whose actions the corporation was convicted, is a "rotten apple" in a corporation that conducts itself as a good citizen, and has a compliance program, control and enforcement, or whether it is an offense committed within the framework of a corporation in which the organizational culture is one of committing offenses (see Miriam H. Baer, "Organizational Liability and the Tension between Corporate and Criminal Law", 19 J. L. & Pol'y (2010), viewable http://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol19/iss1/1.
The State Attorney's directive also states that one of the parameters that must be taken into account when prosecuting corporations is: "the degree of failure in the corporation's culture of compliance with the law", how many employees were involved and whether it was a business practice, and on the other hand, the extent to which the corporation cooperated with the investigation and the extent to which it contributed to the investigation. In this case, the confession of the defendants and their desire to leave this sad chapter of their history behind them and focus on regrowth, the early discovery and cooperation even before the beginning of the proceeding, and especially the conduct of control to detect and prevent future embezzlement possibilities, attest to the fact that the rehabilitation was indeed successful.
6.3 The passage of time Section 40K (10)
The court may consider the passage of time from the time the offense was committed as a reason for mitigating the defendant's sentence within the framework of the compound. The affair before us took place between the years 2011-2014 when the indictment was filed in 2019. Therefore, this factor must also be taken into account.
6.4. Cooperation with the accuser (section 40k(6) )
This section allows the court to take into account "the defendant's cooperation with the law authorities." As I have detailed, the defendants disclosed to the enforcement authorities the findings of the internal investigations, and cooperated with them throughout the process until and within the framework of the proceeding.
- Deterrence Considerations in Economic Offenses
In determining the punishment within the compound, the law allows considerations of personal and general deterrence to be taken into account. Sections 40F and 40G of the Penal Law stipulate that the court may take into account deterrence considerations, provided that the court does not deviate from the scope of punishment in this matter. Therefore, this test must be met after determining the complex. As stated, the central principle guiding the sentencing is the principle of proportionality. The reduction in the status of the deterrence consideration stemmed from two factors. As for the deterrence of the public, this stemmed from the constitutional difficulty of using a person as a tool to influence the behavior of others. The weight of this consideration is diminished when it comes to a corporation, when it is difficult to talk in this context about an infringement of its dignity.