Cornelia Woll | 5th Annual Lecture Series On The Ethics Of Capitalism

Why It Matters

The analysis reveals how law is being weaponized in great‑power competition, forcing companies worldwide to navigate a new risk landscape where legal compliance is also a matter of geopolitics.

Key Takeaways

• US employs corporate criminal law extraterritorially to safeguard national interests
• Out‑of‑court settlements preserve foreign firms' access to Western markets
• Allied nations quickly adopt similar negotiation‑based enforcement mechanisms
• Legal actions increasingly serve as tools in international power struggles
• These practices drive institutional change, reshaping global markets' moral economy

Pulse Analysis

The United States has long leveraged its regulatory clout to shape global commerce, but Cornelia Woll’s latest research shows a decisive shift toward extraterritorial criminal enforcement. By pressuring foreign corporations into out‑of‑court settlements, Washington ensures that firms retain vital links to Western supply chains while simultaneously embedding U.S. policy goals into private‑sector behavior. This approach, detailed in *Corporate Crime and Punishment*, illustrates a sophisticated blend of legal negotiation and geopolitical strategy that extends far beyond traditional antitrust or sanctions regimes.

Allied countries have rapidly adopted the United States’ playbook, creating a network of negotiation‑based enforcement tools that mirror American tactics. Europe, Japan, and other partners now view corporate settlements not merely as dispute resolution but as instruments to align foreign business practices with shared strategic objectives. The diffusion of this model blurs the line between domestic regulatory autonomy and coordinated geopolitical pressure, prompting a re‑evaluation of how multinational firms assess legal risk and compliance across jurisdictions.

The broader consequence is a transformation of the global moral economy. As legal actions become proxies for power struggles, institutional norms evolve, influencing everything from investment decisions to supply‑chain design. Companies must now factor geopolitical considerations into compliance programs, while policymakers grapple with the ethical implications of weaponizing law. Understanding this emerging landscape is essential for executives, legal counsel, and investors seeking to navigate an increasingly politicized regulatory environment.

Original Description

In a geoeconomic world, companies are transmission belts and sites of conflict between states. In her recent book Corporate Crime and Punishment, Cornelia Woll explores how the United States has used corporate criminal law well beyond its territory in support of legal ambitions but also its national interests. The extraterritorial reach of domestic law was enabled by out-of-court settlements that foreign companies agreed to preserve their access to economic networks of the Western hemisphere. Due to their effectiveness, similar negotiation-based instruments were quickly adopted across numerous allies of the United States. At the heart of the book is a critical analysis of how economic law enforcement has become entangled with geopolitics, where legal actions can serve as instruments of international power struggles. This in turn triggers institutional change in numerous countries, profoundly reshaping the moral economy of global markets.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Cornelia Woll is President of the Hertie School and Professor of International Political Economy. Woll came to the Hertie School in 2022 from Sciences Po in Paris, where she had served in many roles since 2006, including President of the Academic Board, Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Max Planck Sciences Po Center. She has been a visiting professor at Goethe University Frankfurt and Harvard University. Woll holds a habilitation in political science from the University of Bremen (2013), a bi-national PhD from Sciences Po and the University of Cologne (2005), and an MA and a BA in international relations and political science from the University of Chicago.

Her research focuses on the international political economy and economic sociology, in particular regulatory issues in the European Union and the United States. A specialist on business-government relations, she is the author of Corporate Crime and Punishment: Negotiated Justice in Global Markets (Princeton, 2023), The Power of Inaction: Bank Bailouts in Comparative Perspective (Cornell, 2014) and Firm Interest: How Governments Shape Business Lobbying on Global Trade (Cornell, 2008). Other work has examined economic patriotism, trade and industrial policies, Europeanisation and employers’ organisations.