4 ms·

Make the CEO responsible, want those big rewards (high ceo pay) get ready to deal with big responsibility. I’m sure if CEOs were criminally liable things would

Make the CEO responsible, want those big rewards (high ceo pay) get ready to deal with big responsibility. I’m sure if CEOs were criminally liable things would change very quickly.

lordnacho 2y ago
Yeah, this is key. I don't see why the system shouldn't be set up that way. Company does something criminal, now boss is considered a criminal.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  That is a perversion of justice. You can not transfer criminal liability for money. Your employees can be criminals regardless of culture. The precedent this would set is ridiculous.
  - abenga 2y ago
    Who should be responsible for a company's crimes if not the people who make decisions in the company? If we want companies to have legal personhood, how about they suffer the same perils of breaking the law (prison time, etc)? Fines are just a price we set on breaking the law.
    - constantcrying 2y ago
      >Who should be responsible for a company's crimes if not the people who make decisions in the company? The person committing that crime. >If we want companies to have legal personhood, how about they suffer the same perils of breaking the law (prison time, etc)? Companies can not be put to jail.
      - abenga 2y ago
        The people committing the crime include those who make the decisions. Hiring an assassin makes me guilty of murder.
        endominus 2y ago
        I'm almost certain that's not true (at least, not in my own jurisdiction). Conspiracy to commit murder, perhaps. "Murder for hire" is apparently the DoJ term (https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/murder-hire-convict-sentenced-ten-years-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/murder-hire-convict-sen...). But that's not the situation here anyway. Is an architect guilty of murder if a building he designs collapses? Flaws in his design may have contributed. What about the construction company that built it? Perhaps they were incompetent and sloppy in their construction. The suppliers might be at fault as well; they could have sold inferior steel or concrete. What about the politicians that passed faulty legislation for building codes? Does some of the blame not fall on them too? Or the maintenance company that skimped on their maintenance checks and could possibly have seen the cracks forming? There is very rarely, despite the assurances of five-whys and other incident response practices, a clear-cut and obvious point of failure when complex systems break. The Boeing situation was a failure of culture, people say. Maybe. They justify criminal charges on the C-suite as a result. Maybe even that is just, for a certain definition of justice. But the buck doesn't have to stop there. Where are the criminal charges for the shareholders, who chose to keep these criminals at the head of the company? Where are the charges against the FAA, who continued to do leave Boeing to be its own regulator? Why not cast blame on the previous CEOs as well? After all, culture takes a long time to change, and the current CEO has only been in the role since 2020 - the MAX's first flight was in 2016!
  - ben_w 2y ago
    1) It's the CEOs job to know. Carelessness, recklessness, wilful ignorance, malice, these are all terms of art and can lead to different liabilities; as a non-lawyer I don't trust my own understanding as to the exact boundaries between them. 2) If the CEO knows, then the word "conspiracy" comes to mind, does not require them to perform the criminal act, only their agreement to act.
  - thoronton 2y ago
    The people in charge have to ensure that the right measures are in place to prevent illegal behavior. If they do not do that, then they are liable. At Boeing, effective measures are obviously not in place.
constantcrying 2y ago
The criminal precedent of punishing a person for a crime they didn't commit and had no knowledge of is so bad that I honestly didn't think any reasonable person could come up with this.
- sudosysgen 2y ago
  There is immense precedent to punish a person for a crime they were responsible for and that they should have known was happening.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    The software issues definitely were not something the CEO should have known about.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      The CEO has the responsibility to make the company work well. If a company build products that injure or kill people, the CEO should be in trouble too. Instead of looking the other way and still get big paychecks and bonuses, improve design, testing, all company processes and make the company build products that work.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- doctor_eval 2y ago
  There were two crashes. The CEO most certainly should have known about the problems after the first one. It’s the CEO’s job to ensure that sufficient measures are in place to prevent failure. They should not be punished for accidents; they should be punished if the accidents were reasonably predictable. Which was most certainly the case when they decided to the redundant AoA sensor an optional extra.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    >There were two crashes. The CEO most certainly should have known about the problems after the first one. Then drag him to court for that. But this is totally different to charging him with the crimes of other people he couldn't have known about.
Arnt 2y ago
So the CEO says in court: «I am now aware that some of the issues on your jira backlog caused damage to our customers. The very-well-compensated programming team leader and the highly paid programmers reported to me that there were no such issues in the backlog, and based on their written assessment I decided to release the new version. It would be impossible for me to check every detail, and therefore unreasonable for the jury to expect that.» And the jury agrees, and someone goes to prison but it isn't the CEO.
- archerx 2y ago
  Nice strawman. The prosecution reminds the jury that the CEO got paid 33 million before bonuses and the programmers only got 150k.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  Eh, my current project manager does not even seem to check every detail and we appear to be moving by pretty dashboards, so I expect CEO will have even smaller, simpler dashboard. Fwiw, if CEO got in front of the jury, I would expect things to look bleak for the CEO ( it is not exactly a favored class now ). There is a reason it does not happen often ( for example outright fraud ala Bankman ).

Make the CEO responsible, want those big rewards (high ceo pay) get ready to deal with big responsibility. I’m sure if CEOs were criminally liable things would change very quickly.

lordnacho 2y ago

Yeah, this is key. I don't see why the system shouldn't be set up that way. Company does something criminal, now boss is considered a criminal.

constantcrying 2y ago
That is a perversion of justice. You can not transfer criminal liability for money. Your employees can be criminals regardless of culture. The precedent this would set is ridiculous.
- abenga 2y ago
  Who should be responsible for a company's crimes if not the people who make decisions in the company? If we want companies to have legal personhood, how about they suffer the same perils of breaking the law (prison time, etc)? Fines are just a price we set on breaking the law.
  - constantcrying 2y ago
    >Who should be responsible for a company's crimes if not the people who make decisions in the company? The person committing that crime. >If we want companies to have legal personhood, how about they suffer the same perils of breaking the law (prison time, etc)? Companies can not be put to jail.
    - abenga 2y ago
      The people committing the crime include those who make the decisions. Hiring an assassin makes me guilty of murder.
      - endominus 2y ago
        I'm almost certain that's not true (at least, not in my own jurisdiction). Conspiracy to commit murder, perhaps. "Murder for hire" is apparently the DoJ term (https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/murder-hire-convict-sentenced-ten-years-prison https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/murder-hire-convict-sen...). But that's not the situation here anyway. Is an architect guilty of murder if a building he designs collapses? Flaws in his design may have contributed. What about the construction company that built it? Perhaps they were incompetent and sloppy in their construction. The suppliers might be at fault as well; they could have sold inferior steel or concrete. What about the politicians that passed faulty legislation for building codes? Does some of the blame not fall on them too? Or the maintenance company that skimped on their maintenance checks and could possibly have seen the cracks forming? There is very rarely, despite the assurances of five-whys and other incident response practices, a clear-cut and obvious point of failure when complex systems break. The Boeing situation was a failure of culture, people say. Maybe. They justify criminal charges on the C-suite as a result. Maybe even that is just, for a certain definition of justice. But the buck doesn't have to stop there. Where are the criminal charges for the shareholders, who chose to keep these criminals at the head of the company? Where are the charges against the FAA, who continued to do leave Boeing to be its own regulator? Why not cast blame on the previous CEOs as well? After all, culture takes a long time to change, and the current CEO has only been in the role since 2020 - the MAX's first flight was in 2016!
- ben_w 2y ago
  1) It's the CEOs job to know. Carelessness, recklessness, wilful ignorance, malice, these are all terms of art and can lead to different liabilities; as a non-lawyer I don't trust my own understanding as to the exact boundaries between them. 2) If the CEO knows, then the word "conspiracy" comes to mind, does not require them to perform the criminal act, only their agreement to act.
- thoronton 2y ago
  The people in charge have to ensure that the right measures are in place to prevent illegal behavior. If they do not do that, then they are liable. At Boeing, effective measures are obviously not in place.

constantcrying 2y ago

The criminal precedent of punishing a person for a crime they didn't commit and had no knowledge of is so bad that I honestly didn't think any reasonable person could come up with this.

sudosysgen 2y ago
There is immense precedent to punish a person for a crime they were responsible for and that they should have known was happening.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  The software issues definitely were not something the CEO should have known about.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    The CEO has the responsibility to make the company work well. If a company build products that injure or kill people, the CEO should be in trouble too. Instead of looking the other way and still get big paychecks and bonuses, improve design, testing, all company processes and make the company build products that work.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
doctor_eval 2y ago
There were two crashes. The CEO most certainly should have known about the problems after the first one. It’s the CEO’s job to ensure that sufficient measures are in place to prevent failure. They should not be punished for accidents; they should be punished if the accidents were reasonably predictable. Which was most certainly the case when they decided to the redundant AoA sensor an optional extra.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  >There were two crashes. The CEO most certainly should have known about the problems after the first one. Then drag him to court for that. But this is totally different to charging him with the crimes of other people he couldn't have known about.

Arnt 2y ago

So the CEO says in court: «I am now aware that some of the issues on your jira backlog caused damage to our customers. The very-well-compensated programming team leader and the highly paid programmers reported to me that there were no such issues in the backlog, and based on their written assessment I decided to release the new version. It would be impossible for me to check every detail, and therefore unreasonable for the jury to expect that.» And the jury agrees, and someone goes to prison but it isn't the CEO.

archerx 2y ago
Nice strawman. The prosecution reminds the jury that the CEO got paid 33 million before bonuses and the programmers only got 150k.
A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
Eh, my current project manager does not even seem to check every detail and we appear to be moving by pretty dashboards, so I expect CEO will have even smaller, simpler dashboard. Fwiw, if CEO got in front of the jury, I would expect things to look bleak for the CEO ( it is not exactly a favored class now ). There is a reason it does not happen often ( for example outright fraud ala Bankman ).