[jeroenhd]

I get why you would say something like that in astonishment.

By why would you ever send that out over a medium that'll leave a paper trail?

Thank goodness that criminals aren't very smart. Their idiocy is doing society a huge favor.

[tedivm]

Oh that's easy- this was the compliance officer, and by showing that he raised concerns over this he may be able to claim that he did his job as best he could under the circumstances. I'd need to see the rest of the context, but this could very well be a "cover your ass" message.

Imagine if you're a security officer at a company and were just overridden on a decisions- you'd definitely want to shoot off an email describing the issue so that later on you aren't held responsible for it (of course depending on the severity quitting may also be desirable, but not everyone is in a position to immediately drop a job).

[notahacker]

If you're covering your ass, you write something with cautious "could be interpreted as..." wording that distances yourself from it, not "we're doing a fking crime bro!"

[nafey]

I am wondering if raising objections internally will be sufficient in this case. As a leading executive at Binance shouldn't he be expected to report any malicious activity to the authorities?

[dsr_]

Yes, and the SEC mandates that.

[mytailorisrich]

It's a global phenomenon. People can't abstain from posting online and from sharing on messaging platforms these days.

It's even been noticed by contemporary philosophers:

https://youtube.com/shorts/Blw2dNZwZzg?feature=share

[hef19898]

Just imagine the paper trail this new breed of criminals will leave!

[unity1001]

> Thank goodness that criminals aren't very smart

No, the criminals are extremely smart. Its just that these were amateurs who didnt know that in Anglosaxon common law, you have to avoid being honest about anything and even deny any wrongdoing even if you get caught the act of murdering someone. Then you can exercise plausible deniability, claim incompetence or mental incapacity and you can negotiate your sentence. Any kind of honesty works against you in the US law as a result. That's how you end up with people who are total experts in their field testifying in courts that they "didnt know" that something they did would cause so much harm to something or somebody or the society.

As of this very moment, thousands of much, much bigger corporations are actually destroying the entire US society in a real way and not like these amateurs who were just shuffling some funny money. But the real psychos know how common law works. There wont be any trail of their wrongdoing, and when there is, there will always be plausible deniability in that trail...

[w7]

> these were amateurs who didnt know that in Anglosaxon common law, you have to avoid being honest about anything and even deny any wrongdoing even if you get caught the act of murdering someone

Ignoring the "Anglosaxon" buzzword here, none of this is unique conceptually to US law, or foreign conceptually to anyone who's told a lie when younger. It's instinctual for many when they know they've done something wrong. Trying to paint human nature as a unique problem that US law faces, or promotes, is itself dishonest.

> claim incompetence or mental incapacity

Neither of these get you "off the hook"; that's a misconception.

> That's how you end up with people who are total experts in their field testifying in courts that they "didnt know" that something they did would cause so much harm to something or somebody or the society.

It can be either dishonesty, or lack of omniscience by the expert in question. Unless you're a mind reader, you have no idea. This is why testimony is evaluated along with other aspects of a case, and not alone.

> There wont be any trail of their wrongdoing, and when there is, there will always be plausible deniability in that trail...

Plausible deniability does not shield you from all liability.

[unity1001]

> Ignoring the "Anglosaxon" buzzword

The 'Anglosaxon' term is a long-standing political science, history and diplomacy term. Its not something that can be ignored, especially because...

> none of this is unique conceptually to US law

... it is.

The common law derives from the medieval !Anglosaxon! feudal law, which is based on contracts, agreements, negotiations and precedents. It can be 'interpreted' by the judge, who takes on the role of the feudal lord of the earlier times, and he or she can 'interpret' the law or precedents. The persecution or the defendant can negotiate any outcome. This trait of the common law system causes all the parties to open the 'bargain' from the maximum bets that they can imagine, assuming that it will be 'negotiated down' eventually. Which obligates the need for lying and denying that was mentioned earlier - if you deny any kind of wrongdoing even when caught red handed, you have a better chance of negotiating something better than if you were honest. The only sizable countries that use this law system are the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and NZ if you count as sizable. Along with a number of smaller island states.

The ENTIRE rest of the world uses the civil law system that descended from the Napoleonic law, which descended in turn from the French Revolutionary principles. It does not rely on agreements, contracts, negotiations or precedents. It cannot be 'interpreted' The law is made by the democratic parliamentary authority and it clearly outlines crimes and punishments and there can be no negotiation made. Even the reductions in sentencing or the modifications that can be done to the final decision on anything are clearly outlined. Including the benefits that confessing a crime brings. Whereas lying is penalized further. There is no 'negotiation' that can be done in any way. That is why civil law encourages confessions and telling the truth in contrast to the common law which allows you to negotiate.

Which is also the reason why the lawyers get upper middle class salaries and income in entire rest of the world but make obscene, irrational income in the US - when the legal system allows outrageous decisions, reparations, sentences that can only be negotiated through professional lying, posturing, playing down or up, personal relations in between the lawyers, prosecutors and judges, it encourages the mess that one can see in the US to happen.

In Europe, judges and lawyers and prosecutors function more like clerks - the law is clear and solid. The rewards and punishments are the same. Has someone done what he or she shouldnt have done? Yes. What is the penalty for this? This particular thing. That is applied. There is no 'negotiation' anywhere in the process.

This difference not only makes the Anglosaxon legal system quite different from entire rest of the world, but it also causes the social, economic and political life in the Angloamerican world and the rest of the world to be very different. A corporation can get away with destroying the environment or killing hundreds of thousands people with their product or the new drug. Even if they know beforehand what will happen and start to repress information and bribe experts to lie on their behalf to sell their product. Because, when they get caught, what will happen will be an eventual negotiation. In the rest of the world that does not happen - there is no way to negotiate down any sentence that may befall on your corporation, but most importantly, you, the perpetrator...

[linksnapzz]

>It can be 'interpreted' by the judge, who takes on the role of the feudal lord of the earlier times

The judge is separate from the prosecution (who are referred to in court as "the state" or "the government"). This is called "judicial independence".

>The persecution or the defendant can negotiate any outcome...

...provided that outcome is preferable to having the jury decide.

>Which obligates the need for lying

No, that's perjury if done under oath. Or, in the case of prosecutorial misconduct, grounds for a mistrial.

>The ENTIRE rest of the world uses the civil law system

No, it does not.

>which descended in turn from the French Revolutionary principles.

No, it's even older than that.

>It cannot be 'interpreted'

You have never been sued in France, and you have never seen the inside of a US courtroom except on TV.

>Which is also the reason why the lawyers get upper middle class salaries and income in entire rest of the world but make obscene, irrational income in the US

The average US lawyer makes less money than the average web developer in the Bay Area.

>In Europe, judges and lawyers and prosecutors function more like clerks - the law is clear and solid.

Europe, equipped with legal technology far in advance of what the Anglophone world must deal with, has eliminated ambiguity in language to such an extent that the legal profession there is now a form of bookkeeping. Soon, the Sorbonne law faculty will be replaced by Droite-GPT (which will still take the month of August off, because reasons...)

>In the rest of the world that does not happen - there is no way to negotiate down any sentence that may befall on your corporation, but most importantly, you, the perpetrator...

The Code Napoleon has eliminated corporate malfeasance in the non-english-speaking world. Quite remarkable.

[jcranmer]

> The 'Anglosaxon' term is a long-standing political science, history and diplomacy term. Its not something that can be ignored, especially because...

Well, being perhaps overly pedantic, but it should be written Anglo-Saxon, and there's a reason that it's hyphenated.

> The common law derives from the medieval !Anglosaxon! feudal law [...]

I have literally heard no one refer to it as "Anglo-Saxon" law before--it's "common law" or sometimes a formulation like "in the Anglosphere" or "English-derived law." Calling it Anglo-Saxon, in fact, would be wrong, because it's not Anglo-Saxon--it's Norman. (And, we're getting incredibly pedantic here, Anglo-Saxon rule was never feudal.) Even Wikipedia's page listing other terms for common law never suggests Anglo-Saxon, the closest being Anglo-American.

> The ENTIRE rest of the world uses the civil law system that descended from the Napoleonic law,

LOLNOPE. Actually, I think a majority of the world population might not even be on the civil law system (whether derived from Napoleonic code or not). There's a lot of Islamic law and customary law going on in several countries, especially several populous ones. Not to mention that many civil law countries never incorporated the Napoleonic code or any of its descendants.

> The persecution or the defendant can negotiate any outcome. This trait of the common law system causes all the parties to open the 'bargain' from the maximum bets that they can imagine, assuming that it will be 'negotiated down' eventually. Which obligates the need for lying and denying that was mentioned earlier - if you deny any kind of wrongdoing even when caught red handed, you have a better chance of negotiating something better than if you were honest.

Uh... I mean, by this point, it's pretty clear to me that you have at best a superficial understanding of how common law legal systems work, because this is confusing as heck, and it's muddled to the point that I'm not sure what you're trying to argue.

I think you're starting by talking about plea bargains, which is a concept that only exists for criminal prosecutions, and a quick perusal of Wikipedia suggests that some civil law countries do have facilities that are similar to plea bargains. But we're not talking about criminal prosecutions here, we're talking about civil disputes, and both civil and common law jurisdictions allow parties to settle out of court to resolve a dispute.

[w7]

Long standing in what circles? I've only seen it in Russian derived or connected media, political think, and institutions. The primary source of papers using that term to refer to US law seems to be the Russian State University of Justice.

I don't think I've seen an authoritative source elsewhere use it, because it would be like pretending the Norman conquest never had an effect on legal proceedings. As if there is some unbroken historical lineage.

This is why I labeled it a buzz word, it's a phrase with a specific (negative) connotation attached to it, used by specific media, as a catch-all for describing institutions in the US.

https://euvsdisinfo.eu/what-do-the-pro-kremlin-media-mean-by...

[unity1001]

> Long standing in what circles?

Long standing in history, long standing in diplomacy, long standing in actual freaking Louis XIV administration communique, long standing in practically everything.

No offense but just because you people have a beef with Russia at the moment and they are using the term, the rest of the world is not going to change how they speak so that you dont get offended.

> I don't think I've seen an authoritative source elsewhere use it

Obviously you are not a student of history.

[w7]

> Long standing in history, long standing in diplomacy, long standing in actual freaking Louis XIV administration communique, long standing in practically everything.

That's neat, the dead are welcome to their opinions. That doesn't change where or why it's used primarily by certain parties in their English facing media.

> No offense but just because you people have a beef with Russia at the moment and they are using the term, the rest of the world is not going to change how they speak so that you dont get offended.

I never asked them to-- if that's the phrasing in their native language, then so be it. Same reason why we can call Germany the name "Germany".

But it clearly has a different meaning in English.

> Obviously you are not a student of history.

I'll admit error if you can find a source, that's not Russian, that uses it to refer to modern US law-- even if it's just a translation from another language.

The problem is I'm having a hard time finding one on my own.

[notahacker]

The problem with writing that your company is knowingly committing a crime in an instant message to colleagues has little do with "negotiation" and everything to do with evidence, which funnily enough is taken into account in most legal systems influenced by Napoleonic codes...

It may surprised you to learn that criminals also commit crimes and lie about them in countries whose legal system is not based on common law.

[w7]

Their entire statement of

> civil law system ... does not rely on agreements, contracts, negotiations or precedents. It cannot be 'interpreted'

betrays that they've never examined legal proceedings in either system.

Contracts apparently don't exist in civil law, and when asked to explain the differences between "Jurisprudence Constante" and "Stare Decisis", I guess "Jurisprudence Constante" means precedent doesn't exist!

I think they're confused on the differing weight and roles of case law in rendering decisions between the two systems, and over corrected.

[unity1001]

> Contracts apparently don't exist in civil law

This does sound like insincere debate. Where does in my comments it says that contracts dont exist in civil law. It says civil law is not BASED on contracts, agreeements and precedents. The common law is.

And no, the complications that are so beautifully and 'respectably' named in the common law dont exist in civil law. The law is always clear - if something is not covered by an immediate law, it is covered by a broader law that affects those cases.

[unity1001]

Nowhere in my comment it says that criminals in other countries do not lie. Or the admission of guild is not considered evidence. It clearly outlines the differences in the legal systems and how the competent criminals navigate the former. If Binance people had any experience, they would be talking by using well rounded and vague words even among each other like how any exec in the US does, and they would avoid providing any such evidence. Moreover, they would easily be able to claim ignorance and deny any wrongdoing.

I recommend you read my comment again.

[baby]

Because that's his job? He's the compliance officer

[saiya-jin]

we don't hear from the smart ones, do we

[koolba]

There’s clearly some extreme selection bias when it comes to leaving a paper trail admitting to crimes.