As someone on a sibling thread noted, if you limit the personal liability to the CEO, then that creates a strong incentive to make the CEO position into "highly

As someone on a sibling thread noted, if you limit the personal liability to the CEO, then that creates a strong incentive to make the CEO position into "highly-paid fall guy" while the other people responsible—quite probably even the people primarily responsible—laugh all the way to the bank. At a minimum, liability must be possible for the entire C-suite and the board. Depending on the nature and degree of the atrocities being committed, I can see a pretty strong argument for liability for anyone involved in any way who's being paid more than, say, national median salary + 50%—that is, anyone for whom "I was just following orders" doesn't have with it the background of "and if I disobeyed, I would risk destitution for myself and my family." The horrible effects of some of these decisions, and the number of people who have to suffer them, mean I have no compunction about comparing acts like these to war crimes, and we don't allow "I was just following orders" as a defense to those, either.