"It seems like the best report money can buy," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn).. "It absolves upper management, denies deliberate wrongdoing and dismisses corporate culpability".
Bichlbaum and his colleague, Michael Bonanno, had set up a fake Dow Chemical Web site called Dow Ethics, and been invited by the hard-working BBC, who had been tracking the story of Bhopal and corporate culpability for years.
And that's even before any investigation of corporate criminal culpability.
Throughout their deliberations, some members of the group expressed concern about accountability for chemical pollution, citing examples of corporate and government culpability for improperly managed hazardous waste sites and other sources of chemical exposures.
Implicit in the Court's admonition that 'the ultimate judgment of juries must be trusted,' United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S., at 285, 64 S.Ct. at 138, however, is the realization that they may demand more than corporate bylaws to find culpability.
It restates bits and pieces of all the great polemic he's given us over the last 20 years – guns, corporate mendacity, community betrayal, beltway culpability – and actually repeats his opening line from Fahrenheit 9/11.
Today is Workers Memorial Day, an occasion to mourn those killed in the workplace, to condemn the lying about culpability and to demand corporate accountability.
"If the company does not waive the privilege," the judge wrote in his order, "the culpability of both the corporate officer and the company counsel will remain beyond scrutiny.
The US Attorney's manual clearly states, "Only rarely should provable individual culpability not be pursued, particularly if it relates to high-level corporate officers".
Levitt is unsparing in his criticism of corporate greed and puffery; he even takes a few swipes at his own early culpability as a player on Wall Street.
But shift the issue to the culpability of laissez-faire markets, the absolute right to profit from nature and profit-maximizing corporate practices, and their conservative worldview is activated.
