Resorting to Criminal Justice to Escape the Regulator? A dilemma for business lawyers

This paper highlights the fundamental role of business lawyers in the redefinition process of the traditional divide between administrative authorities and the criminal justice system. In contrast to the usual interpretation of Foucault’s thesis of differentiated management of illegalisms, this study reveals that the justice administered by regulatory agencies is not invariably favorable to defendants in cases of stock market violations. For their lawyers, turning to criminal justice can serve as a strategy to resist the dominance of the French stock market regulator in its authority to qualify such violations legally. This paper is based on the analysis of twenty-one semi-structured sociological interviews.