Food Scandals on Trial: Analyzing Court Outcomes of Food Safety Cases in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Food safety governance is generally understood through legislative and administrative action, even though courts determine whether claimants receive compensation and whether criminal defendants are convicted and punished. Yet there has been little empirical research examining the judiciary's role across civil and criminal proceedings and different judicial tiers. This study analyzes Taiwan's judicial response to food safety violations using 1878 defendant‐level observations from 694 civil and criminal judgments issued between January 2000 and June 2024. We examine associations between litigation outcomes and litigant characteristics, legal representation, incident type, case profile, and court context. In civil verdict models, large private enterprises acting as plaintiffs or appellants were associated with outright wins rather than defeats; more plaintiff or appellant legal representation was associated with favorable outcomes in several models. Moreover, criminal defendants from large private enterprises had lower odds of conviction in both tiers, whereas adulterated food cases had higher odds of conviction in both. Associations involving other predictors varied across proceedings, judicial tiers, and outcomes. The findings partially support party capability theory but show that associations involving litigant resources and case characteristics were not uniform. By examining civil and criminal adjudication together, this study establishes courts as a distinct site of food safety governance.