Victims of corporate misconduct have traditionally relied on civil litigation to force corporate wrongdoers to make them whole. While our civil justice system has been an effective vehicle for compensating victims, that system has drawbacks, including the time and expense involved in litigating a case to conclusion.
However, when corporate misconduct rises to the level of a crime, and when that crime results in a federal criminal conviction, victims have an alternative: an order of restitution as part of the corporate defendant’s criminal sentence. As discussed below, victims enjoy several strategic advantages in a restitution proceeding that they do not in civil litigation.
