While it is true that the criminal business law has taken several preventive principles such as transparency, respect of confidentiality, etc. against infringements, it should, however, be noted that principles of this category are often considered as moral precepts. Hence, there is the necessity of business ethics in the economic and business criminal law.
Business ethics is defined as a set of conduct rules and values that are considered essential in business relationships and are arranged essentially around the trio of “good faith”, “loyalty” and “confidence”. The idea of necessity of business ethics is old and has long been organized independently without the help of criminal law or, at least, with limited assistance of the latter.
Although the emergence of ethics in the business world is still a point of debate for some scholars, it has now become obvious. The presence of morality in economic relations not only remains in the declaration of suspicion acts, but is also detectable at a higher level, particularly useful for encouraging the economic criminals to repent and - in some conditions - be released for the sanctions.
This morality in commercial relations has several functions: prevention of crime, detection or punishment.
Therefore, in this study, we will try to highlight and describe in detail the main functions of business ethics as a first step, then as a second step, we would focus on an empirical approach applied to business ethics in a powerful French corporation like Thales.
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