Chris Myers, John Rowley, and John Irving of the Holland & Knight firm have authored a Client Alert on the recent decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejecting a challenge to vicarious corporate criminal liability. The case involved the criminal prosecution of a ship owner/operator for failure to properly maintain an oil record book (ORB) as required by Coast Guard regulations. Members of the engineering department on the ship had utilized a by-pass pipe to route oily wastewater directly into the ocean. The ORB was falsified to omit this activity. The owner/operator contended that its policies prohibited such activity and that the government should be required to prove that the company did not have an effective compliance program.