I was rereading some books at work last night and I got to thinking about Extra-Territoriality. While the corps themselves are answerable to the Corporate Court(CC), does each corporation have its own judicial system? If they have their own courts then they need to have prisons or fines or some sort of punishment (unless they outsource prisons to LS or KE). Not to mention the very basics of what we consider Due Process might not even exist. Miranda rights probably don't exist. Some companies your probobly guilty until proven innocent and if you can not afford a lawyer you shouldn't have done the crime (employees probably get one as part of their package).

I'm sure the penalties for Aztechnology are far different for SK. But some things that SK don't care about might get you in deep trouble at EVO. For example you can practice blood magic at Aztechnology, but I'm sure in SK its a capital crime. Wearing a concealed firearm might not even be a crime at Ares, but at Horizon it would be a big no no.

What do people think each corp would have as its odd big crimes/small crimes? Which ones have judges and wich ones have peer reviews or (scare thought) does HR handle all the criminal complaints. Do you get a layer or are you in trouble. We all jsut think in terms of if the runners get caught they get executed or offered a deal to make a run to get out of trouble; but what about corp sec nailing you for littering while you case the place (or hell even loitering).

Hell, I bet wearing a (Ares model) firearm is part of the dress code at Ares.

Perhaps it's kinda like federal and state laws in the USA? The CC has a set of overarching laws/rules that all members need to abide by, but each individual corp has another set of laws that it enforces? And you can be tried at either level.

Ooo... Imagine the fun of being tried at the CC level: each corp's representatives trying to manipulate the others to get a verdict that would suit their needs best....

I think its more like the UN and various countries. But even then its not "International Law", but rather "Extraterritorial Law".

For example (per Running Wild) the UN did not ratify a motion to make 7 Sapient creatures have the same rights as Metahumans. However the CC did pass the same resolution. That means that if your a centaur in Quebec I can murder you in cold blood and all I'm looking at is an animal abuse charge. In the same city I do it on any corporate property and its a murder charge.

I tend to agree with this statement. I think most corporate punishments would either be forced community service (even for capitol crimes) (aka sweat shops of the future) or a fine. As you pointed out they would need their own prisons, courts, etc. I think for a lot of crimes the worse punishment would be exile (as in you are no longer allowed in that corps' stores, its subsituaries stores, or its territory). This can be a near death sentence if you were permently locked out from say Aztechnology (you can't go to Stuffer Shack any more).

I decided to dig through my collection and I'm rereading "Corporate Download". It's set in 2061, but it looks to have a lot of the info about the corps. Sometimes I have more books then I realize.

And I think the standard punishment for anything (including littering) for the Azzies is serve as a blood source for the blood mages or play in a death sport. ("I sentance you to GARTHEL THE GARTHAX!!!")

As for prisons, if cities outsource that to LS I don't see why corporations wouldn't do the same.

BRodda has a good idea of about how it work, further complications can come up when say someone with a UCAS SIN is arrested on the Extraterritoriality of say Aztechnology. Remember that "extraterritoriality”, meaning that any land (in this case owned by the corp) is not subject to local jurisdiction, however it is very likely to keep their extraterritorial rights they have to abide by a few rules.

Now if a runner is caught for some minor crime like littering or loitering his best bet is just to run the moment you step past corp territory they can't chase you anymore its outside there jurisdiction. For real security run to another corps territory then they really can't chase you. Now if you commit some major offense then they may simply send star or Knight Errant after you as their jurisdiction usually covers the whole local area.

It can be very advisable for a team to pick a corp not to do any runs against and live primarily in that territory. So if any security team from another corporation wants to track you down they'd have to answer to the CC for violating the territory of another megacorp.

All megacorps are going to have laws on their own land, enforced by security. All megacorps also have their own security teams (some more effective than others). They will all have their own 'judicial system', however it may be as simple as the police chief saying "I saw he did it, case closed" (and in most cases, that's probably all it comes down to. Don't expect the Corp to pay out the big bucks for a judge and trial for any case that doesn't promise to lose them money - and if the Corp stands to lose money in the case anyway, don't expect the trial to be long.)

Many megacorps have their own long-term holding facilities/techniques (Aztechnology and Ares both do). They are unlikely to outsource their prisoners. Some megacorps may decide to pay money for outsourcing prison-operation, but there are quicker, more efficient punishments. Remember that stripping a SIN is generally as good as a death sentence, although it's only good with people who don't know any sensitive data. Indentured service, pay cuts, job changes, etc. can all be used as punishment for lighter sentences. I'm sure Friend Computer can find something appropriate for most any crime.


Corporate Court is really meant to regulate the interactions between corps, not behaviors within the corps themselves. An individual's case is highly unlikely to come before the CC unless it's based around corporate malfeasance. However, corporate punishment is reigned in by profit, sales, and ultimately, PR. A corp that regularly hands out beatings will be known for that, and that stigma will follow their products and haunt their hiring (not to mention it may drive current employees to seek extraction). Better to think out more creative punishments and give the impression of a happy family. This keeps employees happily working hard (or at least working) and can be used to push through what otherwise might be a morale-harming change or a chance to reduce overhead (by denying a worker a pay raise or an expensive luxury). And this isn't even touching on what might be attempted using matrix technology for behavior modification.

A Corp can of course only strip the SIN's it issues if someone has dual-citizenship with Aztech and UCAS. The megacorp only had the authority to remove its own.

Two words: Human Resources. *shudder*

1) Legally speaking, you mean
2) Assuming the megacorp isn't also really good friends (i.e. paying billions in taxes) to the issuing government in question
3) And the person isn't living in a de facto corporate state like Atzlan or Japan
4) And really, do you think that's honestly going to stop them?

If they were being REALLY nice, they could issue a criminal SIN and toss them out. It's about as bad.

Why does the phrase strip mining come to mind?

That is why I like the idea of certain corps (Horizon comes to mind first, but any of the Asian corps as well) of mandatory community service to the corporation till damages are paid in full (or you die, what ever comes first). To the corp this is PR friendly (he's a crook doing community service to mend his ways to society), and it is cheap labour.

Some of this is also touched upon in Corporate Shadowfiles.

What benefit is there to stripping a SIN though? You're making the person harder to track, but the corp is the one that wants to track people. If they want to treat people like property, keeping the SIN (and giving them a criminal SIN) works much better than erasing it.

Citizenship and SIN are related, but I don't think they're the same thing. You can't have citizenship without a SIN, but you can have a SIN without citizenship. (Though a person with a SIN and no citizenship would be unusual, like the movie with Tom Hanks where the guy couldn't leave the airport.)



What's the profit motive? That is, if I am an Ares employee and Ares citizen and I steal something, how does Ares gain by either paying to have me put in another prison, or paying to have me put in their own prison? It seems more likely that the punishment would be something that either profits the company or at the very least, doesn't cost the company anything. So forced labor or forefiture of wages and privledges would seem to stand in for prison terms (and would probably be pretty similar), and on the high side you might be volunteered as human test subjects or simply used for spare parts.

That would make a good idea for a trid show anyway, a "Dirty Dozen"-style thing where corp subjects convicted of capital crimes would be outfitted with cranial bombs and sent on suicide missions. Good times.

I agree the corp court is like the UN, for them to all agree takes a lot of moving and shaking, it really serves to keep the corps from actually coming to blows.

Corp punishments for corp employees are probably like community service X hours of work without pay.

More server, maybe you're gettingh volunteered for experimental implants.

For hard core cases there are prisons which are corp run, whose to say they don't go back to the AAA's.

As for diffenrces between Aztechnology and SK-sure the azzie's have blood sacrifices but let's be honest, you're in very little danger of being fed to the CEO of most corps as a canape.