Corporate crime rising steadily, expert says

Corporate crime rising steadily, expert says

SEMARANG (JP): Corporate crime has been rising quietly in Indonesia with law enforcers either too ignorant or unable to stop the trend, a leading criminologist said yesterday.

Is Susanto, a law professor of the University of Diponegoro, said during a law seminar yesterday that people are so dazzled by the huge tax payments and export incomes big corporations are totaling that they often overlook the crimes they are committing.

He cited collusion, environmental pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources, tax evasion, labor exploitation and cheating of consumers as some of the crimes committed by corporations that go virtually unpunished.

Susanto was speaking at a two-week workshop to review the current criminal laws in the country. The event is jointly organized by the University of Diponegoro and the National Development Planning Board, featuring speakers from various leading law schools in the country.

Susanto, dean of the post-graduate program at the University of Diponegoro, predicted that corporate crime will continue to increase in line with the rapid growth of the Indonesian economy.

There has been no real effort to stop the trend chiefly because of public ignorance of corporate crime, he said.

"The majority of people do not pay attention to this kind of crimes, according to a recent research," he said.

Although the country, and the government, is losing huge sums of money in corporate crime, there is not a single institution established to deal with this particular issue, he said, adding police alone cannot be expected to do the job.

He said it was difficult to detect corporate crime because of its' complexity and lax law enforcement.

He said the most serious form of corporate crime is collusion and corruption involving big corporations. (har/rms)