Political leaders in Russia, Venezuela and other oil-rich countries are bending laws to crack down on foreign firms and to strengthen their grip on oil revenues through state-run firms.
Sony Kapoor, an adviser to a special European Parliament committee on the financial crisis, said Wednesday that raising "the costs of financial malfeasance, including through mandatory prison terms, is necessary to counterbalance the astronomical rewards financial market actors can potentially reap by bending laws to the breaking point".
It is criticism that has found an echo in a Europe still skeptical of Mr. Berlusconi and his background as a conservative media magnate, and suspicious that his supporters may be using their political power to bend laws to suit their leader.
It's a divide that lets those with monetary influence and lobbying access bend laws to favor their wealth and power, and lets incumbents leverage that influence and access in order to maintain their position without electoral challenge.
"More than just a cog in the machine of "wealth management," Mossack Fonseca used its influence to write and bend laws worldwide to favor the interests of criminals over a decade".
In some situations, to avoid having a troubled conscience, healthcare personnel believe they have to break or bend laws and rules in their practice [ 24, 25].
Hodge believes the culture in professional services is now so corrosive – and oriented toward bending law to favour clients in ways that run counter to the intention of parliaments – that legislation is required to fine firms and those involved in bad practice and exclude them from public sector work.
Still, even as presidents bent the laws of war to suit military need, Mr. Witt argues, those laws remained an important moral guidepost, if not one that always reduced suffering.
Aryanto Sutadi, 58, a retired official who ran the national police's legal division until last month, estimated that 25percentt of police officers bent the law to earn extra income.
It makes franchise films even harder to trust and respect, with their narratives opening up to soapy revelations that bend laws of nature to make a quick buck.
