The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Isabel Schoultz

Isabel Schoultz

Senior lecturer

Isabel Schoultz

“We Have Been Thrown Under the Bus”: : Corporate Versus Individual Defense Mechanisms Against Transnational Corporate Bribery Charges

Author

  • Isabel Schoultz
  • Janne Flyghed

Summary, in English

The telecommunication company Telia’s dealings in Uzbekistan have resulted in bribery accusations both in Sweden and in abroad. The article analyzes the defense mechanisms produced by both the corporation and the prosecuted former executives of the company. Telia’s initially denial eventually changed into a partial acknowledgment in combination with a scapegoating discourse. While Telia hardly defended itself at all in the Swedish court, the company’s former executives employed a defense of legality, denial of knowledge, of deviance, and of responsibility as well as a claim of being scapegoated. We discuss these developments in the light of the transformation of the Telia case from a mediated corporate scandal to a criminal court case and from a focus on organizational to individual responsibility.

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology of Law

Publishing year

2020-12

Language

English

Pages

24-35

Publication/Series

Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime

Volume

2

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Law and Society

Keywords

  • corporate crime
  • accounts
  • neutralizations
  • bribery
  • court ethnography

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2631-309X