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Ultimately... when it comes to a big enough company, these decisions get squirrelly from the perspective of a moderate politician. Take VW's emsissions test ch
by netcan 8y ago
Ultimately... when it comes to a big enough company, these decisions get squirrelly from the perspective of a moderate politician.
Take VW's emsissions test cheating. They broke the law, blatantly, intentionally, for 6 years that we know of, with substantial financial and competitive gains.
In Europe (most consequences were in the US), this is even more aggregious, imo. European emissions standards, vehicle taxation and such are often designed to give locals (esp VW) an advantage in the market. VW wrote a lot of the rules they broke themselves, practically.
Anyway... Back to the moderate "jobs and harmony" politician. Handing out a genuinely sufficient (enough so that crime doesn't pay, even if you only get caught every 2nd time) penalty would endanger the solvency of the (limited liability) company. That's not good for jobs.
Genuinely pursuing criminal charges against execs is something every major company, bank and such cries "disaster" over.
It's kind of a "too big to fail" problem. Does Germany/EU care more about fairness and rule of law or about the success of the biggest German company?
- magicnubs 8y agoMonopsonies can be as bad as or worse than monopolies.
- tyfon 8y agoIn Europe, many of the VWs execs are prosecuted over this. In the US the exec got 7 years in jail if I remember correctly. The company itself was fined €1 billion (not enough imho) in Germany. So this actually happens, and I agree that execs should be personally liable for damage that is done to others/the environment as result of their decisions.
- im3w1l 8y ago(Partially) nationalize it as a penalty. Screws over the shareholders without endangering the jobs.
- notSupplied 8y agoWhy would you prioritize punishing the shareholders? Middle class savings are also shareholders too, especially of big public companies. They're certainly too diffuse to be complicit in the crime. Punishing companies and shareholders has too much collateral damage to innocent employees and shareholders. We should focus on criminal punishment of executives via jailtime, not via fines.