Until a few months ago, I worked at a company that was uneventfully owned by various PE firms for the last fifteen years or so. I was shitcanned after the PE ow

Until a few months ago, I worked at a company that was uneventfully owned by various PE firms for the last fifteen years or so. I was shitcanned after the PE owners of my company got their arm twisted into selling my company to a strategic buyer that had previously bought another division of my company and then played dirty under my employer's name. When the buyer was served the inevitable lawsuit, they played even dirtier and effectively goaded the judge into hearing out the weak case made by my employer. After that development, the buyer just threw in a massive offer (likely 4-5x the realistic value, but I wasn't privy to any details), bought us, dropped the suit, terminated any employee that testified against them, terminated any employee that didn't keep the lights on, and have been leaving the business to languish while they sort out multiple other lawsuit-riddled acquisitions they've made in the last year. Whenever an employee of the buyer shows up to a facility that belongs to my previous company, they come with a bodyguard/security, if you need any hints regarding their moral character. Most players in the industry refuse to deal with that buyer, so they just attempt to deceive acquired customers when making an acquisition, and throw a bunch of money and crook lawyers at the (many) lawsuits that pop up. This type of behavior is not strictly limited to private equity. The real issue is that people who pull stunts like the above will never get their teeth punched out for it, and they're a wolf in a henhouse when dealing with a legal system that's largely powerless to say "I know it when I see it". The punishment for being a piece of human dogshit in this manner is effectively nothing, and nearly infinitely less than the reward. I haven't thought of an answer that doesn't give discomforting power to those evaluating these cases, but as long as repeat offenders can paper over every bad-faith action by claiming they're following the letter of (some interpretation of) the law and never get punished for it, it will never stop.