You're confusing two very different issues- civil and criminal liability. Corporations protect their shareholders and officers from a variety of civil liability

You're confusing two very different issues- civil and criminal liability. Corporations protect their shareholders and officers from a variety of civil liability claims, as the corporation itself takes on that responsibility. Criminal liability does not get shielded by a corporation. Your example about a software bug is a great one- that would clearly be a civil issue in most cases, but in the case that the law was broken in the process (say, a car company explicitly programs their vehicles to have lower emissions during testing than they do in real world scenarios) then you should expect some jailtime[1]. So going back to my example- if people follow the law but kill someone during testing (such as with Uber) then they probably shouldn't be held criminally liable, but if they are breaking the law (like comma.ai did) and kill someone as a result I would be shocked if they weren't held criminally liable. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16743308/volkswagen-oliver-schmidt-sentence-emissions-scandal-prison https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16743308/volkswagen-olive...