yes the legal theory is that 1) punishing the bad actor is more important than restitution. it's more important that Zappos is punished to discourage bad beha

yes the legal theory is that 1) punishing the bad actor is more important than restitution. it's more important that Zappos is punished to discourage bad behavior from Zappos or anyone else, less important how exactly the punishment money is split up 2) since lawyers can get paid out of the settlement, it incentivizes independent lawyers to go after bad companies wherever they may be rather than needing regulators. so you don't need to maintain and hire a bunch of regulators and their legal teams, which will often be too many or too few. other countries may prefer things the other way around and often do. it's easy to think of pros and cons either way.