Dr Costantino Grasso
Senior Lecturer in Law, Coventry University
Dr Costantino Grasso is Senior Lecturer in Law at Coventry University and Global MBA module leader for Corporate Governance and Ethics at the University of London. He is an expert in corporate social responsibility, business ethics, corporate governance and financial crime.
He has served as a consultant, advisor, and lecturer on topics related to those matters for the European Union and Council of Europe as well as national governments, academic institutions and firms in Europe and North America.
Dr Costantino Grasso holds a LLB (Hons.), PgD, LLM and PhD in internationalization of criminal law policies and corporate crime. He is the editor in chief of the Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics Blog and member of the Society of Business Ethics (USA).
In 2012, he was selected as an international expert and rapporteur for the European Union Project ‘Prevention of fraud, corruption and bribery committed through legal entities for the purpose of financial and economic gain’ led by the T.M.C. Asser Institute in cooperation with the Dutch Ministry of Justice. In October 2017, he was appointed as an international expert for the Council of Europe within the project “Strengthening Capacities to Fight and Prevent Corruption in Azerbaijan.” On that occasion he gave a series of seminars on corporate criminal liability and undertook an assessment of the most recent legal innovations introduced in Azerbaijan producing a set of recommendations. In December 2017, he was appointed as an international expert within the European Union/Council of Europe project “Fight against corruption and fostering good governance in Belarus” and delivered a series of seminars on corporate Liability and punishment to representatives of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Investigative Committee, and Ministry of Justice.
As of June 2018, Dr Costantino Grasso has been appointed as an international expert in the area of corruption and good governance by the Council of Europe – Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law – Economic Crime and Cooperation Division (Tender 2017/AO/51).
Being qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and as a lawyer in Italy, he has always combined academic activities with legal practice. In 2014, he worked as a corporate governance and compliance specialist for the Serious Fraud Office participating in the first-ever U.K. Deferred Prosecution Agreement between that prosecuting body and ICBC Standard Bank Plc, which concerned a complex case of transnational bribery. On that occasion, he received an award for the substantial input into the success of the agreement and, on 23 November 2016, he was awarded as a member of the case team the UK Government Legal Department’s Prosecutor of the Year Award. Although he did not accept the role due to the impracticality of serving judicial functions abroad, on 19 July 2017 he was appointed by the Italian Ministry of Justice as an honorary judge at the Court of Turin.