Food Industry, Law, and Society

Food Industry, Law, and Society:
Corporate Power, Public
Health, and Accountability

The Corporate Crime Observatory (CCO), Boston College Law School, Exeter Law School, and the Global Harmonization Initiative are co-organizing the two-part international roundtable "Food Industry, Law, and Society: Corporate Power, Public Health, and Accountability." The event brings together academics, investigative journalists, legal practitioners, public-health researchers, civil-society representatives, and experts with direct experience of the food industry to examine how law, corporate conduct, market structures, and institutional practices shape the production, detection, and governance of food-related harm.

The roundtable approaches the food industry as a field in which substantially different forms of harm coexist. Some conduct is already recognized as illegal but may remain difficult to detect, investigate, or attribute within complex organizations and global supply chains. Other practices may remain lawful while raising significant questions concerning cumulative public-health effects, scientific uncertainty, consumer autonomy, transparency, corporate influence, and the adequacy of existing regulatory responses. The event therefore moves beyond a simple distinction between lawful and unlawful conduct to examine the different mechanisms through which harmful practices may escape, resist, or receive inadequate forms of accountability.

The symposium, which will be held online via Zoom, was conceived as a two-part international discussion bringing together participants with different forms of expertise and professional experience across law, public health, journalism, corporate practice, food science, and civil society. Rather than examining the food industry through a single disciplinary lens, the event is structured to test how different forms of harm are identified, exposed, legally classified, and governed.

The first session, scheduled for September 11, 2026, and entitled "Food Industry Harms: Illegality, Opacity, and Lawful Social Harm," examines conduct that is already legally recognized as wrongful, the informational and organizational conditions that may keep misconduct hidden, and the more difficult gray area in which products or commercial practices remain lawful while potentially contributing to cumulative public-health or social harm.

The second session, scheduled for September 18, 2026, and entitled "Governing the Food Industry: Procurement,
Market Power, and Accountability," builds on those findings by turning to questions of governance and institutional response, including regulation, enforcement, market structures, procurement, transparency, and the mechanisms through which public and private institutions may prevent, mitigate, or respond to the harms identified during the first discussion.

Both sessions will be moderated by Diane M. Ring, The Marianne D. Short and Ray Skowyra Professor of Law, Boston College Law School. The event is organized by Costantino Grasso, Diana Bogueva, Yasmine Motarjemi, and Diane M. Ring.

SESSION ONE
(September 11, 2026 | 8:00 a.m. Boston, 1:00 p.m. London, 2:00 p.m. Rome, 2:00 p.m. Cape Town, 3:00 p.m. Nairobi, 10:00 p.m. Sydney)
Food Industry Harms: Illegality, Opacity, and Lawful Social Harm
Zoom Registration Link

Moderator: Diane M. Ring

Diane is the Marianne D. Short and Ray Skowyra Professor of Law at Boston College Law School. She works primarily in the fields of international taxation, corporate taxation, and ethical issues in tax practice. She was a consultant for the U.N.’s 2014 project on tax base protection for developing countries and the U.N.'s 2013 project on treaty administration for developing countries. Her writing addresses contemporary ethics challenges, information exchange, international tax relations, and tax abuse and corruption. She co-authors three case books– covering international taxation, corporate taxation, and ethics in federal tax practice.

Alice Rizzuti

Alice is a Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Criminology, Politics and Law, University of Hull. Previously, she worked in the Sociology Department at the University of Essex, where she completed her PhD in Criminology with a study on food crime and the involvement of organised crime and mafia-type groups in the food supply chain in England and Italy. Currently, she investigates the application of digital technologies like blockchain within food networks, alongside the complex intersections connecting food justice, food insecurity, and food crimes.

Andrew Wasley

Andrew is an award-winning investigative journalist specialising in food and farming. He has been reporting on this beat for almost 25 years, uncovering a string of major scandals connected to food safety and industrial farming, from contaminated chicken poisoning thousands to the rise of livestock megafarms and the emergence of "superbugs" linked to antibiotic use in farming.

Organizer: Costantino Grasso

Costantino is an Associate Professor in Law at Exeter Law School and Editor-in-Chief of the Corporate Crime Observatory. His research focuses on corporate and economic crime, corruption, corporate accountability, whistleblowing, and the relationship between corporate power, regulation, and social harm. He is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and as a lawyer in Italy. He previously served in the Serious Fraud Office’s Corporate Bribery and Corruption Division and has worked as an international expert on corruption and good governance for the Council of Europe.

Cynthia Gichiri

Cynthia is an accomplished multimedia journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya, where she works as a senior reporter at Africa Uncensored, an online media house renowned for its commitment to producing impactful investigative and in-depth documentaries. In the last 3 years, she has delved into agriculture, exposing the corporate and political interests behind some of Kenya’s laws governing the industry. Cynthia holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from St. Paul’s University, where she pursued a major in Development Communication.

Organizer: Diana Bogueva

to be completed.

Federica Raffone

Federica is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Criminal Law and Adjunct Professor of Criminal Law and Food Safety at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. Her research focuses on criminal law in the agri-food sector, with particular attention to food safety, corporate accountability, sustainability, and the evolving role of criminal law in European regulatory frameworks. She is a member of UNIMORE’s Interdepartmental Research Centre on Agri-Food Safety (CRISA).

Federica Urso

Federica is a journalist covering EU policy, energy, and the environment. She has recently started a project with Data Desk to report on oil & gas from an energy transition perspective. She was previously at S&P Global, covering EU agri-food policy, and earlier at Reuters, where she reported breaking news. She also contributed to Deep Seed, a podcast on regenerative agriculture, and took time to deepen her OSINT investigative skills as part of a shift toward long-form journalism.

Filippa Juul

Filippa is an Assistant Professor in Public Health Policy and Management at SUNY Downstate. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the NYU School of Global Public Health, an MSc in Public Health Nutrition from the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), and a BA in Nutrition and Dietetics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain). As an awardee of the NYU Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, she completed her postdoctoral training at the Department of Public Health Policy and Management at the NYU School of Global Public Health. Her research is motivated by a deep commitment to improving cardiometabolic health outcomes at the population level, with a specific focus on reducing health disparities. As a nutritional epidemiologist, she combines her expertise in epidemiological methods and nutrition. Filippa’s research has examined the association between ultra-processed foods and diet quality, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

Jean Feminier-Bonhomme

To be completed.

Mary Inman

Mary Inman is a partner of Whistleblower Partners, a law firm specializing in representing whistleblowers under the US reward programs, including the False Claims Act and SEC program. In London, she recruited UK whistleblowers to file tips in the US and now represents UK whistleblowers bringing tips about tax evasion under HMRC’s strengthened reward scheme, a program for which she helped advocate and advised HMRC on its design. Mary represents Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz and is a regular commentator on whistleblowers for the FT and NYT. Mary is a Board member of Psst.org.

Maxime Chrétien

Maxime is Chief Audit Executive at the City of Geneva, leading a 13-person audit team and advising the executive elected board on risk, governance, and crisis management. With over 20 years in audit, forensic investigation, and fraud prevention, he previously led forensic practices at Deloitte and PwC in Geneva, New York, and Paris, handling major corruption, fraud, and dispute investigations globally. A Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Internal Auditor, and Swiss Chartered Accountant, he serves on the boards of the Swiss ACFE chapter.

Milind Tiwari

Milind is a Senior Lecturer in Financial Crime at the Australian Graduate School of Policing & Security, Charles Sturt University. His research focuses on money laundering, financial crime, and the role of technology in both facilitating and detecting illicit activity. Before entering academia, he worked in anti-money-laundering investigations with KPMG, EY, and Deloitte in India and Australia. He holds a PhD in money laundering from Bond University and is a Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist

Patti Rundall
Initially an artist and teacher, since 1980, Patti has helped many governments, including the EU, bring in legally binding controls based on the world’s first consumer protection tool, the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and the 21 WHA Resolutions that strengthen it. A key member of the global network IBFAN, a leader of the Nestlé Boycott, and founder of civil society networks, she has led calls for transparency and conflict of interest safeguards in public health policy setting and global trading bodies such as Codex.

Rémi Thévenot

To be completed.

Sasha Chavkin

Sasha Chavkin is a senior reporter for The Examination. Sasha has previously written for outlets including ProPublica and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), where he was a longtime reporter and played key roles in award-winning investigations such as the Implant Files and Paradise Papers. His stories have led to dangerous products being recalled, a cabinet secretary being investigated, and billions of dollars in unjustified debts being forgiven.

Tamryn Frank

Tamryn is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape. She served on the technical task team supporting the South African National Department of Health in developing a nutrient profiling model and front-of-package warning label, and as an advisor to a number of African countries working in this space. She is involved in research promoting healthy food environments, child-targeted marketing and ultra-processed product intake in Sub-Saharan Africa. Before branching out into academia, Tamryn worked as a public health care sector dietitian.

Organizer: Yasmine Motarjemi

Yasmine Motarjemi holds an MSc degree in Food Science and Technology from the University of Languedoc, Montpellier, France (1978) and a Doctoral degree in Food Engineering from the University of Lund, Sweden (1988). After her academic career, in 1990 she joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva as a Senior Scientist. From 2000 to 2011, she held the position of Assistant Vice President in Nestlé and worked as the Corporate Food Safety Manager.