7 ms·

> You can't put Exxon in jail. If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on), but is intangible and immor

by etripe 6y ago

> You can't put Exxon in jail. If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on), but is intangible and immortal at the same time, what can you do? Any of the below: * freezing assets (=~ reclamation) * seizing accounts (=~ civil forfeiture) * suspend a business license (=~ locking them up) * introduce a revenue cap (=~ prison labour) * remove lobbyists (=~ losing voting rights) * dissolve or nationalise the company (=~ death penalty) This is by no means an exhaustive list.

seneca 6y ago
> If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on) Please stop repeating this nonsense. Corporate Personhood is a legal idea, and does not mean a "corporation is a legal person". Without corporate personhood, you wouldn't be able to sue a company for wrongdoing if the guilty employee quit, or even enforce basic contracts. There are serious problems with corporations not being held liable, but the situation would be worse without Corporate Personhood, not better.
- believeinskills 6y ago
  Want to elaborate?
- monocasa 6y ago
  You can sue the government even though they aren't granted personhood.
  - ac29 6y ago
    Its harder to sue the government than you might think, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Regardless, the argument there isn't that you can't sue the government at all, but instead that the government is granted immunity for some subset of actions. Going back to the original point, personhood is clearly not a requirement for being named in a suit. For more examples you can also see in rem cases, where the government sues property itself for civil forfeiture. 11 1/4 Dozen Packages of Articles Labeled in Part Mrs. Moffat's Shoo-Fly Powders for Drunkenness did not need personhood to be named in a lawsuit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._11_1/4_Dozen_Packages_of_Articles_Labeled_in_Part_Mrs._Moffat%27s_Shoo-Fly_Powders_for_Drunkenness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._11_1/4_Dozen_...
      - iudqnolq 6y ago
        > but instead that the government is granted immunity for some subset of actions. It's actually the opposite. You can only sue the government when they explicitly give you permission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
        monocasa 6y ago
        The whole point I'm making here is that you can sue an entity without personhood.
        iudqnolq 6y ago
        That's right. I just pointed out the one of the pieces of evidence you used is slightly wrong. Suing the government is a very special case.
        monocasa 6y ago
        See the "Exceptions and abrogation" section of your own citation. It is indeed a (albeit large) subset of actions to which they can apply sovereign immunity.
  - jameshart 6y ago
    ‘Granted personhood’ doesn’t mean anything. The relevant legal term is ‘legal personality’. Governments certainly have legal personality. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to enter into contracts, file lawsuits, or... really make any claim to exist in any meaningful way.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Is the government itself granted first amendment protections as an association of citizens? Or is it thought of a fundamentally different sort of entity, that yes can enter some sorts of legal arrangements, but isn't granted all the rights of a citizen?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - simonh 6y ago
        The details of that probably haven't been settled by supreme court rulings, but the basic principle is that when a corporate entity says something, what's actually happening is that a person in the company is saying this thing, on the behalf of other people in that company, on behalf of, etc until you get to the shareholders. It's people all the way down, and people have rights. The same could be said of the government. Note I'm a British Citizen, but the same basic legal principles apply over here, and have done for hundreds of years. I know there's a widely held conspiracy theory that this is all new, but jurists and legal scholars have been discussing and applying these principles for a very long time.
- ajcp 6y ago
  I think the (now deeply ingrained) confusion stems from a misconception surrounding the Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, where the majority opinion in part cited campaign finance restrictions as a violation of First Amendment rights. Since the Bill of Rights are protections of citizens rights, it has widely been misreported that this meant the SCOTUS ruling de jure recognized corporations to be citizens themselves. This, of course, is not correct. The majority opinion in part says that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." The key phrase here being "associations of citizens", which the majority interpreted broadly to include corporations. This does not at all bestow personhood or citizenship upon corporations, legal or otherwise. It does afford corporations some protections as they are now legally recognized as "associations of citizens".
  - dougmany 6y ago
    At the end of the day the corporation is still enjoying those rights. The majority chose to ignore the veil and freely pass along citizens rights the to association.
    - ajcp 6y ago
      I agree, it was too broad an interpretation, since corporations already have a legal representation and are an economic entity, not a civil society association through which citizens relate to or exercise their political will.
- simplerman 6y ago
  You would sue guilty employees even if they quit and move to another company. I feel that would be much better for personal responsibility. And the best part about this would be people cannot hide behind "I am just following orders."
  - mminer237 6y ago
    Also, it would mean you usually would not recover anything since a corporation usually has deep pockets and your average employee is not even worth suing even if you could win.
    - simplerman 6y ago
      True, but that may be a good thing. This may prevent people from suing for small infractions. On other hand, let's say, if your average software developer knows that they can be sued into bankruptcy, then they will not release unfinished code and voice strong opposition to it. Thus shifting responsibility to middle managers. Now if middle managers know that they can be sued into bankruptcy, they will not override developers concerns and extend deadline and refuse to push unfinished product. Executives may try to override managers decisions but then responsibility shifts to them and they would not want to lose significant portion of their net worth. Board or managing-owners may try to override CEO, but then they will be responsible and they would not want to be personally sued and lose a portion of their personal wealth. Yes this may not impact billionaire owners but that is a small number. Most companies will be more ethical and people will have a high degree of personal responsibility.
      - bumby 6y ago
        I think my issue with your hypothetical is that is assumed a company is already viable and in business. One of the primary advantages of a corporation or LLC is it’s limited liability. I.e., you can take a risk and if things don’t work out you can still personally recover. I suspect if we took the approach of your post, many, many fewer people would try their hand at starting a business because there are no limits to liability and much less capital to fund businesses if shareholders downside wasn’t capped.
- etripe 6y ago
  I'm open to having misinterpreted the situation. How is corporate personhood not the same as a corporation being a legal person? I mean functionally, not semantically. If you would, help me understand why this is not a difference without distinction. Please note I didn't pass any judgement on whether a corporate person is a useful construct or whether it should be abolished. I agree it serves a purpose and should continue to exist. What I would argue is "limited liability" as it applies to and shields company owners shouldn't mean "free from consequences" for the corporation as an aggregate. If I'm reading your post correctly, we don't disagree there.
daniel-cussen 6y ago
Order the company to operate out of a prison complex, under guard surveillance, with monitored phone calls, the works. Every employee must go there for his entire shift, no telecommuting.
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  They'll carve out exceptions for the ones responsible at the top. You'll just be penalizing the common wage earner who have to feed their families.
  - V-2 6y ago
    Even if they didn't make any exceptions, still, why should regular level employees get punished for something over which they've never held any responsibility whatsoever?
    - daniel-cussen 5y ago
      I think "never held any responsibility whatsoever" is going too far. There's one company I know that narrowly avoided the RICO act and paid out a huge amount in a lawsuit, and admitted to having behaved criminally, only to commit the same crime in the same way, in some cases, to the same persons. You're telling me, their employees had no idea, no impact, no responsibility? This reminds me of 2006. The subprime bubble. In California, everyone had six magazines about real estate on their brand new coffee table. You'd go to someone's house, they'd talk about their house. And the houses around them. Anybody people admired, it was because she bought 4 years ago and sold 6 months ago, or better still, because she owned 2 houses and not merely 1. "Real estate agent" was one of the "careers" people rattled off as being respectable, along with doctors and firefighters (lawyers barely, engineers not at all). Everyone was afraid of being priced out of the market, and there was a constant cycle between selling your house at a huge profit, paying out the realtor's fees and taxes and costs of the fixer-upper-ing, and then the dread of having all this money but no house, and buying an expensive new house. With a lot of leverage, but somehow the Ferrari-driving hotshots at the mortgage refinancing found a way to get you a HELOC (home equity line of credit, possible because of the appreciation) so you could buy a hummer. And nobody did anything! Nobody could explain their job then, if what you did for a living made sense outside the bubble you were missing out. I couldn't understand how so many people could contribute to society through sales, retail banking, transactions, appraisers was another one. Unbelievable. The middle class may not have benefitted like the upper class (as it was then called, now you'd say "the rich" or "the 1%"), but they were still avidly playing the game when the music stopped. And they ended up suffering much more for it, (some rich people suffered too), jobs became much more demanding, but they were in on it. It wasn't just Wall Street that kept repeating "real estate never goes down", it absolutely was Main Street too. With that said, the regular employees probably have something to do with the dirty work the business engages in. Otherwise they'd be contractors or outsourced, like the janitors and moderators are.
bumby 6y ago
I think this may create asymmetries between risk/reward for those (real) people making the decisions. Think about it with a sports analogy. If I cheat and take performance enhancing drugs, there’s huge potential upside: I can drastically increase my salary. If the consequence was spread to the team rather than concentrated on the individual it encourages the individual to take that risk. Maybe the team would be forced out of the playoffs. So the team lost their (smallish) chance at a trophy but I get a (largish) chance to increase my salary. In rare cases maybe the individual becomes a pariah. Regardless, if the individual isn’t held disproportionately accountable it incentivizes bad behavior. I think there’s a reason leagues ban individuals for certain behavior.
- smolder 6y ago
  If workers had to worry about the ethics of their employer getting the whole company in trouble, that would be a good thing in the sense of drying up the labor pool for dubiously run companies. On the other hand, the Justice Dept doesn't always land on the side of justice, so smaller companies could end up victims of abuse of the court system in the name of competitive advantage.
  - etripe 6y ago
    > smaller companies could end up victims of abuse of the court system in the name of competitive advantage. The same already goes for things like IP and trademark, so that's a fair bet. Good point.
- etripe 6y ago
  > I think this may create asymmetries between risk/reward for those (real) people making the decisions. Those asymmetries wouldn't be new, because the corporation as a construct already shields the real people making the decisions, along with the jurisprudence of slaps on the wrist. Are companies held accountable for their "externalities" today, like mass foreclosures in real estate, exploitative labour conditions, poisoning the water supply, oil spills, climate change or destruction of habitats? In keeping with the prison metaphor, would you work for an "ex-con" company? How about one on "probation" when you've got a family to support? Would you invest in one? As I see it, the potential for self-corrective behaviour is greater with my (admittedly, off-the-cuff) suggestions than the status quo.
qwertox 6y ago
Doesn't it have a different effect, though? Let's assume you have a company like Volkswagen and the corporate executives have decided they play the game of not getting informed about some really shady business practices which are helping the company to earn good money. Would it make sense for Germany to punish Volkswagen by any of the means you mention, thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers, vs. to hold all (or the relevant) executives responsible, seize all their assets, prevent them from working in any administrative position ever again, limiting their income to a certain amount. Like really sanction them. The company would continue to run, shareholders would be affected minimally, the problem would have been corrected. Of course this is a blue-eyed look at it, but seriously, you also can't do the comparison you are making. They just don't have the same effect.
- foogazi 6y ago
  > thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers Now you are getting into too big to fail territory where applying the letter of the law affects the workers/citizens Similar things would happen due to gross incompetence from workers causing and oil spill (Exxon-Valdez disaster)
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Punish the shareholders, but let the company continue working. In the minimal case this is a tax on profits, in the maximal case this is a nationalization with no compensation.
- etripe 6y ago
  > to hold all (or the relevant) executives responsible, seize all their assets, prevent them from working in any administrative position ever again, limiting their income to a certain amount. Like really sanction them. All for it, if it actually happened anywhere in recent history. I'm not being facetious, but I'm not aware of any examples or am failing to recall them. Do you have any in mind? > the problem would have been corrected. I'm not so sure. Suppose the company made massive profits (or avoided capital expenditure, or limited losses) by cheating at something like emissions. Then, the C-level execs get fired, their assets get seized and they're barred from holding administrative functions again. Did the company not still gain massive profits? Do you think it wouldn't be able to find another set of fall guys, if it pays them enough? Wouldn't the company do it again, if the risk is offset to a bunch of figureheads? Your suggestion would only rule out bad behaviour by those same actors in the future. In a more charitable reading: it would lead to better outcomes than today's rules. Meanwhile, the damage through emissions and particular matter has been done. According to the WHO (0), about 25 people died of particulate and ambient pollution per 100k people in Germany in 2016. That puts it at 2000 people country wide that year. Did Volkswagen kill anyone by doing this? If so, how many of those could have been avoided had they not cheated on their tests? What about the impact on climate change? How were these problems theoretically addressed by seizing C-level execs' assets without giving them jail time? > Would it make sense for Germany to punish Volkswagen by any of the means you mention, thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers Yes, because the infractions were socially destructive. After all, the German government's first responsibility is towards the greater good for its citizens. According to Volkswagen's website (1), 44% of their employees or 292,378 people work for them in Germany itself. Directly, of course. Applying a fairly generous, tenfold knock-on effect, less than 4% of the total population - 2% of the active population - works for or with them. According to CNN (2), it represented 2.7% of Germany's GDP. Also, it would hurt and stimulate competition. Not being able to pay out dividends for a year due to revenue caps, not being able to sell products in Germany that year due to cheating at exchaust measurements, etc might change shareholder voting and investment behaviour. It would damage the brand's image, reduce its ability to attract employees, etc. Maybe market forces would then finally be able to correct bad behaviours. Today's "cost of doing business" slaps on the wrist simply don't seem to have any corrective effect whatsoever. > you also can't do the comparison you are making. I was being hyperbolic for effect. When staying within the confines of pragmatism, surely some kind of revision to corporate/criminal law (or its enforcement) is warranted. Most people don't get the death penalty, either, or go to jail. Hell, apparently some people don't even get speeding tickets! The same would probably go for corporate actors even if the consequences were steeper. [0] https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/ambient-and-household-air-pollution-attributable-death-rate-(per-100-000-population) https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-detai... [1] https://annualreport2018.volkswagenag.com/group-management-report/sustainable-value-enhancement/employees.html https://annualreport2018.volkswagenag.com/group-management-r... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/economy/volkswagen-germany-cars-economy/ https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/economy/volkswagen-ger...
gremlinsinc 5y ago
Require all c-level execs and board members to sign affidavits proving they had zero knowledge of the illegal activity, any who were found to commit perjury later on will get 5x the original sentence that normally is given for the crime. Anyone who provides proof of perjury on another member of the board/execs will receive leniency/clemency. All felonies against corporations must hold at least one person in jail for a minimum of 3 years. Every c-level exec must serve a minimum of 1 year, with very few exceptions... (e.g. CTO started work one day before everything went to shit, literally had no knowledge)... I also think cops who cover up for, or are "quiet" about other cops who've committed crimes, if it comes out they "knew" and didn't tell anyone should serve the same sentence. People in authority need to have consequences, the only way to stop corruption is for corruption to be painful and very complicated so that only a "few" get away with it, the more people get away with it the more it happens.

by etripe 6y ago

seneca 6y ago

> If a corporation is a legal person with inalienable rights (as the SCOTUS seems to have decided on) Please stop repeating this nonsense. Corporate Personhood is a legal idea, and does not mean a "corporation is a legal person". Without corporate personhood, you wouldn't be able to sue a company for wrongdoing if the guilty employee quit, or even enforce basic contracts. There are serious problems with corporations not being held liable, but the situation would be worse without Corporate Personhood, not better.

believeinskills 6y ago
Want to elaborate?
monocasa 6y ago
You can sue the government even though they aren't granted personhood.
- ac29 6y ago
  Its harder to sue the government than you might think, see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Regardless, the argument there isn't that you can't sue the government at all, but instead that the government is granted immunity for some subset of actions. Going back to the original point, personhood is clearly not a requirement for being named in a suit. For more examples you can also see in rem cases, where the government sues property itself for civil forfeiture. 11 1/4 Dozen Packages of Articles Labeled in Part Mrs. Moffat's Shoo-Fly Powders for Drunkenness did not need personhood to be named in a lawsuit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._11_1/4_Dozen_Packages_of_Articles_Labeled_in_Part_Mrs._Moffat%27s_Shoo-Fly_Powders_for_Drunkenness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._11_1/4_Dozen_...
    - iudqnolq 6y ago
      > but instead that the government is granted immunity for some subset of actions. It's actually the opposite. You can only sue the government when they explicitly give you permission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
      - monocasa 6y ago
        The whole point I'm making here is that you can sue an entity without personhood.
        iudqnolq 6y ago
        That's right. I just pointed out the one of the pieces of evidence you used is slightly wrong. Suing the government is a very special case.
        monocasa 6y ago
        See the "Exceptions and abrogation" section of your own citation. It is indeed a (albeit large) subset of actions to which they can apply sovereign immunity.
- jameshart 6y ago
  ‘Granted personhood’ doesn’t mean anything. The relevant legal term is ‘legal personality’. Governments certainly have legal personality. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be able to enter into contracts, file lawsuits, or... really make any claim to exist in any meaningful way.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Is the government itself granted first amendment protections as an association of citizens? Or is it thought of a fundamentally different sort of entity, that yes can enter some sorts of legal arrangements, but isn't granted all the rights of a citizen?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - simonh 6y ago
      The details of that probably haven't been settled by supreme court rulings, but the basic principle is that when a corporate entity says something, what's actually happening is that a person in the company is saying this thing, on the behalf of other people in that company, on behalf of, etc until you get to the shareholders. It's people all the way down, and people have rights. The same could be said of the government. Note I'm a British Citizen, but the same basic legal principles apply over here, and have done for hundreds of years. I know there's a widely held conspiracy theory that this is all new, but jurists and legal scholars have been discussing and applying these principles for a very long time.
ajcp 6y ago
I think the (now deeply ingrained) confusion stems from a misconception surrounding the Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, where the majority opinion in part cited campaign finance restrictions as a violation of First Amendment rights. Since the Bill of Rights are protections of citizens rights, it has widely been misreported that this meant the SCOTUS ruling de jure recognized corporations to be citizens themselves. This, of course, is not correct. The majority opinion in part says that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." The key phrase here being "associations of citizens", which the majority interpreted broadly to include corporations. This does not at all bestow personhood or citizenship upon corporations, legal or otherwise. It does afford corporations some protections as they are now legally recognized as "associations of citizens".
- dougmany 6y ago
  At the end of the day the corporation is still enjoying those rights. The majority chose to ignore the veil and freely pass along citizens rights the to association.
  - ajcp 6y ago
    I agree, it was too broad an interpretation, since corporations already have a legal representation and are an economic entity, not a civil society association through which citizens relate to or exercise their political will.
simplerman 6y ago
You would sue guilty employees even if they quit and move to another company. I feel that would be much better for personal responsibility. And the best part about this would be people cannot hide behind "I am just following orders."
- mminer237 6y ago
  Also, it would mean you usually would not recover anything since a corporation usually has deep pockets and your average employee is not even worth suing even if you could win.
  - simplerman 6y ago
    True, but that may be a good thing. This may prevent people from suing for small infractions. On other hand, let's say, if your average software developer knows that they can be sued into bankruptcy, then they will not release unfinished code and voice strong opposition to it. Thus shifting responsibility to middle managers. Now if middle managers know that they can be sued into bankruptcy, they will not override developers concerns and extend deadline and refuse to push unfinished product. Executives may try to override managers decisions but then responsibility shifts to them and they would not want to lose significant portion of their net worth. Board or managing-owners may try to override CEO, but then they will be responsible and they would not want to be personally sued and lose a portion of their personal wealth. Yes this may not impact billionaire owners but that is a small number. Most companies will be more ethical and people will have a high degree of personal responsibility.
    - bumby 6y ago
      I think my issue with your hypothetical is that is assumed a company is already viable and in business. One of the primary advantages of a corporation or LLC is it’s limited liability. I.e., you can take a risk and if things don’t work out you can still personally recover. I suspect if we took the approach of your post, many, many fewer people would try their hand at starting a business because there are no limits to liability and much less capital to fund businesses if shareholders downside wasn’t capped.
etripe 6y ago
I'm open to having misinterpreted the situation. How is corporate personhood not the same as a corporation being a legal person? I mean functionally, not semantically. If you would, help me understand why this is not a difference without distinction. Please note I didn't pass any judgement on whether a corporate person is a useful construct or whether it should be abolished. I agree it serves a purpose and should continue to exist. What I would argue is "limited liability" as it applies to and shields company owners shouldn't mean "free from consequences" for the corporation as an aggregate. If I'm reading your post correctly, we don't disagree there.

daniel-cussen 6y ago

Order the company to operate out of a prison complex, under guard surveillance, with monitored phone calls, the works. Every employee must go there for his entire shift, no telecommuting.

dimitrios1 6y ago
They'll carve out exceptions for the ones responsible at the top. You'll just be penalizing the common wage earner who have to feed their families.
- V-2 6y ago
  Even if they didn't make any exceptions, still, why should regular level employees get punished for something over which they've never held any responsibility whatsoever?
  - daniel-cussen 5y ago
    I think "never held any responsibility whatsoever" is going too far. There's one company I know that narrowly avoided the RICO act and paid out a huge amount in a lawsuit, and admitted to having behaved criminally, only to commit the same crime in the same way, in some cases, to the same persons. You're telling me, their employees had no idea, no impact, no responsibility? This reminds me of 2006. The subprime bubble. In California, everyone had six magazines about real estate on their brand new coffee table. You'd go to someone's house, they'd talk about their house. And the houses around them. Anybody people admired, it was because she bought 4 years ago and sold 6 months ago, or better still, because she owned 2 houses and not merely 1. "Real estate agent" was one of the "careers" people rattled off as being respectable, along with doctors and firefighters (lawyers barely, engineers not at all). Everyone was afraid of being priced out of the market, and there was a constant cycle between selling your house at a huge profit, paying out the realtor's fees and taxes and costs of the fixer-upper-ing, and then the dread of having all this money but no house, and buying an expensive new house. With a lot of leverage, but somehow the Ferrari-driving hotshots at the mortgage refinancing found a way to get you a HELOC (home equity line of credit, possible because of the appreciation) so you could buy a hummer. And nobody did anything! Nobody could explain their job then, if what you did for a living made sense outside the bubble you were missing out. I couldn't understand how so many people could contribute to society through sales, retail banking, transactions, appraisers was another one. Unbelievable. The middle class may not have benefitted like the upper class (as it was then called, now you'd say "the rich" or "the 1%"), but they were still avidly playing the game when the music stopped. And they ended up suffering much more for it, (some rich people suffered too), jobs became much more demanding, but they were in on it. It wasn't just Wall Street that kept repeating "real estate never goes down", it absolutely was Main Street too. With that said, the regular employees probably have something to do with the dirty work the business engages in. Otherwise they'd be contractors or outsourced, like the janitors and moderators are.

bumby 6y ago

I think this may create asymmetries between risk/reward for those (real) people making the decisions. Think about it with a sports analogy. If I cheat and take performance enhancing drugs, there’s huge potential upside: I can drastically increase my salary. If the consequence was spread to the team rather than concentrated on the individual it encourages the individual to take that risk. Maybe the team would be forced out of the playoffs. So the team lost their (smallish) chance at a trophy but I get a (largish) chance to increase my salary. In rare cases maybe the individual becomes a pariah. Regardless, if the individual isn’t held disproportionately accountable it incentivizes bad behavior. I think there’s a reason leagues ban individuals for certain behavior.

smolder 6y ago
If workers had to worry about the ethics of their employer getting the whole company in trouble, that would be a good thing in the sense of drying up the labor pool for dubiously run companies. On the other hand, the Justice Dept doesn't always land on the side of justice, so smaller companies could end up victims of abuse of the court system in the name of competitive advantage.
- etripe 6y ago
  > smaller companies could end up victims of abuse of the court system in the name of competitive advantage. The same already goes for things like IP and trademark, so that's a fair bet. Good point.
etripe 6y ago
> I think this may create asymmetries between risk/reward for those (real) people making the decisions. Those asymmetries wouldn't be new, because the corporation as a construct already shields the real people making the decisions, along with the jurisprudence of slaps on the wrist. Are companies held accountable for their "externalities" today, like mass foreclosures in real estate, exploitative labour conditions, poisoning the water supply, oil spills, climate change or destruction of habitats? In keeping with the prison metaphor, would you work for an "ex-con" company? How about one on "probation" when you've got a family to support? Would you invest in one? As I see it, the potential for self-corrective behaviour is greater with my (admittedly, off-the-cuff) suggestions than the status quo.

qwertox 6y ago

Doesn't it have a different effect, though? Let's assume you have a company like Volkswagen and the corporate executives have decided they play the game of not getting informed about some really shady business practices which are helping the company to earn good money. Would it make sense for Germany to punish Volkswagen by any of the means you mention, thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers, vs. to hold all (or the relevant) executives responsible, seize all their assets, prevent them from working in any administrative position ever again, limiting their income to a certain amount. Like really sanction them. The company would continue to run, shareholders would be affected minimally, the problem would have been corrected. Of course this is a blue-eyed look at it, but seriously, you also can't do the comparison you are making. They just don't have the same effect.

foogazi 6y ago
> thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers Now you are getting into too big to fail territory where applying the letter of the law affects the workers/citizens Similar things would happen due to gross incompetence from workers causing and oil spill (Exxon-Valdez disaster)
sudosysgen 6y ago
Punish the shareholders, but let the company continue working. In the minimal case this is a tax on profits, in the maximal case this is a nationalization with no compensation.
etripe 6y ago
> to hold all (or the relevant) executives responsible, seize all their assets, prevent them from working in any administrative position ever again, limiting their income to a certain amount. Like really sanction them. All for it, if it actually happened anywhere in recent history. I'm not being facetious, but I'm not aware of any examples or am failing to recall them. Do you have any in mind? > the problem would have been corrected. I'm not so sure. Suppose the company made massive profits (or avoided capital expenditure, or limited losses) by cheating at something like emissions. Then, the C-level execs get fired, their assets get seized and they're barred from holding administrative functions again. Did the company not still gain massive profits? Do you think it wouldn't be able to find another set of fall guys, if it pays them enough? Wouldn't the company do it again, if the risk is offset to a bunch of figureheads? Your suggestion would only rule out bad behaviour by those same actors in the future. In a more charitable reading: it would lead to better outcomes than today's rules. Meanwhile, the damage through emissions and particular matter has been done. According to the WHO (0), about 25 people died of particulate and ambient pollution per 100k people in Germany in 2016. That puts it at 2000 people country wide that year. Did Volkswagen kill anyone by doing this? If so, how many of those could have been avoided had they not cheated on their tests? What about the impact on climate change? How were these problems theoretically addressed by seizing C-level execs' assets without giving them jail time? > Would it make sense for Germany to punish Volkswagen by any of the means you mention, thus weakening the company in relation to foreign car makers Yes, because the infractions were socially destructive. After all, the German government's first responsibility is towards the greater good for its citizens. According to Volkswagen's website (1), 44% of their employees or 292,378 people work for them in Germany itself. Directly, of course. Applying a fairly generous, tenfold knock-on effect, less than 4% of the total population - 2% of the active population - works for or with them. According to CNN (2), it represented 2.7% of Germany's GDP. Also, it would hurt and stimulate competition. Not being able to pay out dividends for a year due to revenue caps, not being able to sell products in Germany that year due to cheating at exchaust measurements, etc might change shareholder voting and investment behaviour. It would damage the brand's image, reduce its ability to attract employees, etc. Maybe market forces would then finally be able to correct bad behaviours. Today's "cost of doing business" slaps on the wrist simply don't seem to have any corrective effect whatsoever. > you also can't do the comparison you are making. I was being hyperbolic for effect. When staying within the confines of pragmatism, surely some kind of revision to corporate/criminal law (or its enforcement) is warranted. Most people don't get the death penalty, either, or go to jail. Hell, apparently some people don't even get speeding tickets! The same would probably go for corporate actors even if the consequences were steeper. [0] https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/ambient-and-household-air-pollution-attributable-death-rate-(per-100-000-population) https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-detai... [1] https://annualreport2018.volkswagenag.com/group-management-report/sustainable-value-enhancement/employees.html https://annualreport2018.volkswagenag.com/group-management-r... [2] https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/economy/volkswagen-germany-cars-economy/ https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/economy/volkswagen-ger...

gremlinsinc 5y ago

Require all c-level execs and board members to sign affidavits proving they had zero knowledge of the illegal activity, any who were found to commit perjury later on will get 5x the original sentence that normally is given for the crime. Anyone who provides proof of perjury on another member of the board/execs will receive leniency/clemency. All felonies against corporations must hold at least one person in jail for a minimum of 3 years. Every c-level exec must serve a minimum of 1 year, with very few exceptions... (e.g. CTO started work one day before everything went to shit, literally had no knowledge)... I also think cops who cover up for, or are "quiet" about other cops who've committed crimes, if it comes out they "knew" and didn't tell anyone should serve the same sentence. People in authority need to have consequences, the only way to stop corruption is for corruption to be painful and very complicated so that only a "few" get away with it, the more people get away with it the more it happens.