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In a corporate case it's hard--both legally and practically--to pinpoint someone of guilty mind performing guilty acts beyond reasonable doubt. That's why the c

In a corporate case it's hard--both legally and practically--to pinpoint someone of guilty mind performing guilty acts beyond reasonable doubt. That's why the corporation is a "legal person" that can itself be legally responsible for stuff and get sued: corporate personhood arose partially as a solution to this problem. This has borne out in legal practice, where even when there's obvious blood in the water, prosecutors have trouble convicting all but a few top guys. Anyway, I also find your profanity-laden vitrol unbecoming of discussion on this site. EDIT: I guess it's now considered a sin to state an easily-verifiable truth and ask for polite discourse.

laserDinosaur 14y ago
Technically a corporation is a person, is it not? What if we tried to send the corporation to jail instead? =)
maratd 14y ago
> In a corporate case it's hard--both legally and practically--to pinpoint someone of guilty mind performing guilty acts beyond reasonable doubt. What? We solved this problem a long time ago. Corporations are beneficial because they provide liability protection to the employees. That's it. In the case of fraud, we decided the corporate veil should be lifted. So all you have to do is go through each individual in the corporation, see what laws they broke, and go after them. It's very straightforward. The problems occur when the corporations received ungodly amounts of money from the government, when a government "appoints" individuals to positions within the corporation, and when there's quite a bit of collusion between the corporate entity and the government. At that point, the government has very little incentive to prosecute and the corporate entity has even more incentive to commit fraud.
- cynicalkane 14y ago
  "Limited liability" and "corporate veil" refer to shareholder protection, not employee protection. Traditionally shareholders, not employees, were on the hook for lawbreaking. Anyway, you say something like "go through each individual in the corporation, see what laws they broke, and go after them" as though it's easy. In practice prosecutors have a hard time doing this even when they want to for the reasons I just said. Some of the Enron guys were acquitted by a jury, for example.
mindcrime 14y ago
That's why the corporation is a "legal person" that can itself be legally responsible for stuff and get sued: corporate personhood arose partially as a solution to this problem. Yes, which should lead one to question whether or not a State created legal fiction like a "corporation" should exist to protect individuals from responsibility for their actions. Anyway, I also find your profanity-laden vitrol unbecoming of discussion on this site. That's too bad, but I'm not changing the way I go about things. If pg were to post and say "profanity is no longer allowed here," then I'd have a decision to make, but otherwise, I choose my words to suit the situation at hand and to suit my personality.

laserDinosaur 14y ago

Technically a corporation is a person, is it not? What if we tried to send the corporation to jail instead? =)

maratd 14y ago

> In a corporate case it's hard--both legally and practically--to pinpoint someone of guilty mind performing guilty acts beyond reasonable doubt. What? We solved this problem a long time ago. Corporations are beneficial because they provide liability protection to the employees. That's it. In the case of fraud, we decided the corporate veil should be lifted. So all you have to do is go through each individual in the corporation, see what laws they broke, and go after them. It's very straightforward. The problems occur when the corporations received ungodly amounts of money from the government, when a government "appoints" individuals to positions within the corporation, and when there's quite a bit of collusion between the corporate entity and the government. At that point, the government has very little incentive to prosecute and the corporate entity has even more incentive to commit fraud.

cynicalkane 14y ago
"Limited liability" and "corporate veil" refer to shareholder protection, not employee protection. Traditionally shareholders, not employees, were on the hook for lawbreaking. Anyway, you say something like "go through each individual in the corporation, see what laws they broke, and go after them" as though it's easy. In practice prosecutors have a hard time doing this even when they want to for the reasons I just said. Some of the Enron guys were acquitted by a jury, for example.

mindcrime 14y ago

That's why the corporation is a "legal person" that can itself be legally responsible for stuff and get sued: corporate personhood arose partially as a solution to this problem. Yes, which should lead one to question whether or not a State created legal fiction like a "corporation" should exist to protect individuals from responsibility for their actions. Anyway, I also find your profanity-laden vitrol unbecoming of discussion on this site. That's too bad, but I'm not changing the way I go about things. If pg were to post and say "profanity is no longer allowed here," then I'd have a decision to make, but otherwise, I choose my words to suit the situation at hand and to suit my personality.