American Law Institute Publishes Principles of the Law, Compliance and Enforcement for Organizations, Prof. Claire Hill, Associate Reporter
Earlier this year, the American Law Institute (ALI) published the Principles of the Law, Compliance and Enforcement for Organizations. This is the first time that ALI has produced Principles on this area of the law. Work began in 2015 under the leadership of Reporter Geoffrey P. Miller, New York University School of Law; Associate Reporters Jennifer H. Arlen, New York University School of Law; James A. Fanto, Brooklyn Law School; and Claire A. Hill, James L. Krusemark Chair in Law, at the University of Minnesota Law School.
In a press release in March 2025, ALI announced the publication and quoted Reporter Geoffrey P. Miller: "'The basis of this project comes out of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, where we had an enormous growth in fines and criminal prosecutions of organizations for various misconduct and misdeeds,' said Miller at the project’s approval by membership. 'This caused a very powerful set of discussions and set many legal minds thinking about what is a way to both enforce the law against organizations’ misconduct, but also to encourage organizations to enforce the law on themselves, through the processes of compliance.'
"This subject matter combines legal and ethical standards. It deals with both externally imposed norms, such as laws and regulations, and internally imposed norms, such as corporate codes of ethics. It is developed through the discretionary actions of regulators and prosecutors, as well as through settlements of enforcement proceedings that do not carry the force of generally binding law. Accordingly, the best course is to set out best-practice standards that may or may not draw on underlying legal norms. The Principles seek to provide best practices for a variety of public and private entities, but its main audience is large, publicly traded corporations."
