ANALYSIS OF CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVE FUNCTIONING OF DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENTS USING A CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAM

Abstract

The Japanese government is aiming for Society 5.0, where cyber and physical technologies are highly integrated to solve social issues and achieve economic development, thereby realizing human-centered value.Some parts of Society 5.0 will be provided via Systems of Systems (SoS) realized via the collaboration of multiple business entities while ensuring independence in the operation and management of each constituent entity. However, under the current Japanese legal system, SoS is difficult to regulate appropriately. Specifically, multiple management entities exacerbate the asymmetry of advanced science and technology information between regulators and operators, making it difficult to investigate the causes, distribute legal responsibility, and gather information to prevent a recurrence. Nonetheless, this can be solved by applying the deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) mechanism. For corporate crimes, this mechanism leverages criminal sanctions to encourage companies to provide information to prosecutors, thereby eliminating the information asymmetry between companies and prosecutors. DPAs have been adopted in the United States and many other countries, but their successes or failures are varied. Multiple conditions may be necessary for DPAs to be effective, but the relationships among these conditions are complex and unwieldy when discussing the design of new regulations with a wide range of stakeholders. 　Therefore, to help promote stakeholder understanding, we analyzed the structure of DPAs using a causal loop diagram.In this diagram, variables related to the operation of the DPAs are set, and by analyzing the relationships among the variables and the controllability of each variable, the rationale for measures that need to be designed alongside DPAs to achieve effectiveness is visualized.Interviews conducted with legal scholars, lawyers, and others validated that the described causal loop diagrams expressed the structure of DPAs at a level that will contribute to stakeholder discussions. Moreover, the effectiveness of the diagrams was evaluated.