'Blackmail' in Commercial Transactions?

Abstract:     
Blackmail, the crime consisting in a threat to perform a legally permissible action which can potentially harm the victim unless the victim gives the blackmailer some sort of consideration, has attracted lots of attention from law professors and philosophers. Other threats to engage in legally permissible acts, such as commercial threats, do not stir as much controversy up. In fact, commercial threats are believed to merely be instances of “hard bargaining.” This paper will question this classification and will attempt to show that there is at least one category of commercial threats, particularly those which can arise within a long-term lopsided commercial relationship, i.e. distressed lending, that are in no meaningful way different from the ones that have warranted support for blackmail criminalization. As a result, this paper suggests that analogical solutions should be prescribed in both cases as a way to maintain coherence within the legal system.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 27

Keywords: Blackmail, commercial threats, distressed lending, bankruptcy, bargaining

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