Corporate Punishment Debate

The problem is that a company can be a revolving door of people taking the fall for crimes. The better dissuading action is to force the company to shutter operations for a set period of time. It's only fair that such a catastrophic punishment can happen to individuals that it can also happen to businesses that are generally much, much more harmful.

Instead of fines the government should be granted an ownership percentage in companies that break that law (thus diluting ownership and directly impacting owners). That way the punishment impacts shareholders/owners, but in way that keeps corporate protections so that society can continue to function.

I didn't say anything about prison, but the term used was carefully chosen in that in some capacities, you are liable for the actions of other people.While I agree with you about prison not working, fining a multibillion dollar company the equivalent of a few day's profits aren't good enough. The fines need to be much more strident, along the lines of administrative dissolution or something else that would motivate the top brass via angry shareholders.

That company really should have been given the death penalty. Immediate suspension of trading and cancellation of all it's stock value and confiscation of all assets to be sold off for damages and repairs. It is really the only way that corporations and their executives will learn. Executives hiding under the corporate rock may not be able to be prosecuted directly, but there is no reason that corporations themselves shouldn't be able to be held to the same consequences as other people

I hate that companies try this. They should pay massive fines and execs should go to prison for this.This is not rhetorical - if you (try to) make the life of literally millions of people worse in a small way, the amount of time and money wasted by them should be calculated and used to determine the punishment.

Because at a certain point, fines punish lower level workers rather than management. Furthermore, if the company is large enough, fining it to the extent that it collapses has material effects on the economy, which governments are incentivized to avoid. This isn't to say that there shouldn't be financial consequences for breaking the law -- of course there should. But management should also be thrown in prison when the company breaks the law, because they're in a position of respo

I'm not against personally prosecuting those in charge, but it's often extremely difficult to prove that specific individuals are responsible.There is a simpler solution. Impose bigger fines. Much much bigger fines. Make the cost/benefit calculus for breaking rules so unattractive that the prudent business decision is to not break them.Right now, when these companies are caught, they have to pay back what they stole, and sometimes get hit with a not so bad punitive damage. T

You really think execs will see consequences (besides fines)?

Punish the company?Fire the board and the C-suite, wipe out all the shareholders and run an IPO, take the proceeds as a fine or restitution for those affected.Or if you’re feeling particularly mean just deny the corporate entity’s rights (and parents) to do business at all, force the owners to run a fire sale for any value they can grab.You penalize corporations with fines proportional to their total value, removing permissions to operate in certain ways, break them apart, or just legal

Killing off one of the largest employers in the world is a volatile maneuver. Surely there should be consequences, however perhaps a tier-based system for violations is needed. Suddenly closing the door on .... GM for example would be catastrophic for the US(hence the government bailout many economists supported). It may be that to properly punish or deter corporations from malicious decisions, the board of directors and majority stock holders should be punished too.