Corporate Security - Private Justice? (Un)Settling Employer-Employee Troubles

‘Corporate security’ is a specialized form of private security providing services to private sector companies and also sometimes to public sector organizations, these services being tailored to the specific needs and interests of clients. This article focuses on those frequent instances where the private party acts independently from public law enforcement. Within this high degree of autonomy from public authorities, corporate security acts as an aspect of their clients’ management, keeping internal order by framing responses to economic crime in terms of secrecy, discretion, control and legal flexibility. Public law actors may however be tasked strategically – sometimes formally, sometimes informally – to assist with these purposes. This article focuses on the modus operandi of corporate security as observed in the Netherlands, setting this in the context of the international literature.