I think that those responsible should be punished by forfeiture of assets. If you are responsible for criminal behaviour at an organization that causes its downfall, then all of your assets (from any source) should be able to be taken by a judge (from any original source) to pay restitution.

I would like to see the former CEOs living in poverty at least for a little while.

Define misbehaving. What we may consider bad isn't necessarily criminal. If a CEO or other person causes the corporation to be criminally negligent, they can be held accoutnable. Look at Bernie Madoff. But laying people off and selling off divisions isn't criminal and are a legitimate business tactics, yet we all bitch a moan about the poor former employees on the unemployment line.

For instance, let us say that BP was negligent with safety with regards to the drilling rig. That the lobbying and moves against the extra equipment caused the failure. Now, BP has just caused billions upon billions of damage, because they did these actions. This could bankrupt BP completely, if it is allowed to take all the fines, damage, and costs.

How about AT&T? Supposedly, they should be fine for every warrantless wiretap they helped the federal government do. Now, they got immunity from this charge, by a law passed by Congress and signed by the President. If they had not, it is $2000/incident. From reports, their actions are actually wiretapping everyone, so it should be an insane amount of money. Probably enough to remove the company from existence.

Microsoft fabricated evidence and then had officers of the company lie on the stand. Now, if you did this personally, you could be charge with perjury. Should the officer, who may not have known better, be charged? Should the entire company?

We have frauds committed. This leads to fines. Most punishments against corporations are small fines.

As long as we have a system - Capitalism - that rewards greed, then corporations will continue to behave like this. If you are being greedy, you will take risks and break rules in the pursuit of higher profits.

The solution is to abolish capitalism and get rid of corporations. Base the economy on need, and not greed. We need a system which revolves around meeting the needs of the many, rather than generating obscene profits for the few.

I would suggest any stockholder with a large enough stake to feel a fine knows enough about the company to know its doing something illegal, though they may look the other way

@Tantris

If there was a law passed giving them immunity then to say that they should be fined is stupid. The law says they can do it, and the Gov't even backs it, so there is no reason they should be fined other than the fact that you seemingly) believe wire-tapping to be wrong. I am sorry to tell you this, but just because you think something doesn't mean that the entire world needs to adhere to that ideological pattern and law.

As far as BP, who's fault really is it that the line broke? Can you really just shuffle *all* the blame on the president? No. And should the entire company suffer for the mistakes or wrong doings of the people that are to blame? I don't htink so. Imagine the catastrophic amounts of jobs that would be destroyed; it would be the worst thing for the world right now.

For microsoft, I would say make specific enquires into each instance of perjury and determine whether the lying officers were being black mailed or not. Then, if they were black mailed, punish the black mailers (because I'm pretty sure that it's a federal offense to lie in court), but it the officers were speaking of their own accord you just punish the officer.

See, it's really quite simple. You just need to not generalize and shuffle blame.

@jman:
1st case: The law passed giving them immunity, was passed after the fact and granted retroactive immunity. Illegal wiretapping is against the law.

2nd case: So, no punishment for a company that is sloppy? I am confused. So, BP just destroyed the fishing industry, the shrimp industry, and the tourism industry...among others...in the Gulf. Who should be punished? The leadership of the company lobbied against safety requirements and against inspections. Does this play into it?

3rd case: So, I get data from my employees which is falsified, and I testify about it. Who gets punished? There is no blackmail, it would make no sense.

1: "Illegal wiretapping is against the law" - not a surprise really given the definition of Illegal is something 'prohibited by law or by official or accepted rules' :P

2: No they should be expected to help with/cover (I'm not sure which) the costs of it, but this should not be left upon the CEO alone!!

3: Well, not you, as long as you can prove you did not knowingly lie.

CEOs/presidents could be fired if a company is hit with major fines (by the majority stockholders if they choose to hold the CEO/president responcible for whatever caused the company fines - of course if the CEO is a major stockholder they have already been 'punished')


retro-active immunity is an odd one, it is against the universal declaration on human rights to prosecute someone for breaching a law which was only made AFTER the breach occured (so you can't/shouldn't retroactively punish people) it is questionable whether retroactive immunity should stand up in court.

If what they did at the time was against the law then it should be possible to prosecute them (a presidential pardon being used after the prosecution would make more sense, or at least seems more legal)

Lobbying for looser safety regulations should not be against the law, stupid legislators should be responcible for their actions just as much as companies - a ban on lobbying - or a change to how governments make their laws is an interesting question.

Of course deregulation might make sense followed by forcing companies to pay for enviromental damage/clean up. (though if BP had subcontracted out the building of a pipe which exploded to some smaller company would it be fair to pnish BP? it is not so obvious and companies would easily find ways around most fines)

BP had subcontracted the running of the rig itself...

Shaming them on TV doesn't work so probably making them do community service or something. Like personally do it. Like put on an orange reflector jersey thing and pick up some trash.

Kind of like that one show where the CEOs do the lowest job in their company, except not staged... and not for like just a week.

First, punish the company. If they cause someone's death, that should cost them an enormous amount of money. Then leave it to people who understand to ensure the safety.

Second, ensure that you've got good contracts in place, so that people who are culpable in the company are properly reprimanded.

"As long as we have a system - Capitalism - that rewards greed, then corporations will continue to behave like this. If you are being greedy, you will take risks and break rules in the pursuit of higher profits.

The solution is to abolish capitalism and get rid of corporations. Base the economy on need, and not greed. We need a system which revolves around meeting the needs of the many, rather than generating obscene profits for the few."

Oh, and in what system do the greedy not do best? By definition, the person who looks out for their own interests does best, be it in capitalism, communism, or anything in between.

How do you punish the company?

Lock the CEO in a room with Jeremy Kyle.

@Tantris

By allowing suing for damages of very great amounts. A strong judiciary is vital for this.

figle, surely Robert Kilroy Silk would be worse/ more effective?

If the CEO and his lobbyists get rules passed to allow them to skimp on safety equipment, the fault lies with the government, not the company. If the government is run by lawyers and they do not consult experts in science, safety, etc. before they make the rules, then it is the fault of the People for electing a bunch of lawyers.

If the CEO and his lobbyists lie to Congress to get the rules passed, it is up to Congress to hold them accountable. If they do not, then it is the fault of the People for electing a bunch of lawyers that are for sale.

Companies want to make money. The Government is in place to balance the needs of the companies and the needs of the people. If they do not, guess who's fault that is?

We did have a system that revolved meeting the needs of the many over the profits of the few. Then we stopped being hunter-gatherers.

Surely case law is more trustworthy than regulation by politicians who are totally unqualified?

@Jamiet Like the safety and envirmental record is so great in China. For every US mine explosion, there are numerous in China. If anybody speaks out or tries to go to an higher official about the situation, bad things happen to them. The smog in parts of China makes the 60s LA air seem not so bad. How about the hundreds poisened babies from contamnatied formula and milk. The list goes on and on. So much for the communist system being free of greed and corruption, or any better than the capitalist.

@warsprite, nowhere is actually communist, according to Jamiet.

The terrible point is though that in a collectivist philosophy, the death of an individual worker is justified for the benefit of the pack. Also, it was Marx who taught that the earth should be exploited for man's materialistic wishes.

Which just confirms my point.

I know.

"BP had subcontracted the running of the rig itself... " - which is probably fairly standard practice - but if the subcontractor is held entirely responcible and goes under, but BP can finance a new company (and re-hire all the workers who lost their jobs when the previous comapny went under) then there is very little incentive to stop BP repeating the same mistake again - self-regulation may work if case law proved costly enough to companies (and individuals) were punished severely enough that the industry valued safety at least somewhere inthe same region as profits...

The point about babies poisoned in China, what happened to the company and people involved?

"During the week of 22 December 2008...former Sanlu general manager and three other company executives appeared in court in Shijiazhuang"

"The Intermediate People's Court in Shijiazhuang sentenced [two] to death, [and one] to life in prison, on 22 January 2009."

"The value of the company plunged as a result of the scandal." (by ~two thirds)

So first, they are talking about a company in the same way americans have private companies, they are open to failing safety standards, and their courts sentenced top people at the company to death.

I see how it has relevance to the conversation, but i don't see how 'communism' is relevant. Here we have an example of a country which is really brutal with it's company executives when they fuck up, and they still fuck up.

Transocean is a huge company. It was worth well over 20 Billion dollar when last I checked.

Right now BP, Halliburton and Transocean are all blaming each other.

These rigs by themselves cost 600 million to well over a Billion dollar each, and Horizon which is not sitting upside down on the floor of the Gulf was perhaps the most expensive rig ever built. The costs to all of these companies will be catastrophic. And this is unlikely to be an inspection issue. Some dumbass did something wrong with a concrete plug that allowed gas out as the well was being capped.

It's going to probably turn out to be human error. And a lot of it may be that Horizon is something comparable to the space shuttle, except more complicated, and it was doing something quite routine for it. They had just finished drilling a very complex structure and had moved on to a fairly easy formation and everyone was probably being lazy.

The first flying fortress crashed when Boeing tested it for the Army Air Corp while being flown by the countries top test pilot. There was nothing wrong with the plane and it did not happen because Boeing was a profit making corporation. The pilot was just being absent minded.

As for cost, BP is losing Billions of dollars as a result of this.....even without the clean up costs.

@orathic Mines are still blowing up in China on a regular basis, poisoned toys are shipped on a regular basis, etc and so on. All after the above mentioned trials. It seems the incentive to produce over safety is worse in China than in modern capitalist or hybridsocialist counrties. Not to mention China is the major driving force behind the whole sale fining of sharks and the killing of endangered animals.

@ gopher It was B-25 Mitchell not a B-17 Flying Fortress. 2nd it happened at night with fog, with all lights off and windows covered in building. All the pilot saw was black on black. Conditions not pilot error.

@JamieT - communism, great in theory but rubbish in practice. Under Mao, more than 50% lived in poverty. The USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc. were not nice places to live either.

@Warsprite - arguably China may have a communist government but most of the economy is definitely not. Which is partly why the poverty rate is now 6% (JamieT, take note).

To answer the original question:
- strong legal penalties discorage bad or careless behaviour. Sadly, the existence of penalties does not stop it completely (if it did, all jails would be empty)
- senior executives who screw up won't get hired by another company
- long term share options are the best way to prevent short termism
- consumer awareness on things like working conditions and green policies drives good corporate behaviour
- thus, press freedom is important (one of the things lacking in China)

If I may add one other point. With the arguable exception of the fair trade movement no one ever complains that they are paying too little for their clothes, food or electronics or that there are too many to choose from. A job lost in a rich country is one (or more) gained in the developing world (another reason why the poverty rate in China is so much better), in return we get lower cost/more choice.

Wait a moment. "The terrible point is though that in a collectivist philosophy, the death of an individual worker is justified for the benefit of the pack. Also, it was Marx who taught that the earth should be exploited for man's materialistic wishes. " None of this is true.

Marxists don't go around saying one death will save more, that is not in the general belief. Marx never advocated exploiting the Earth. Use it, of course, but most Marxists are environmentalists. Also, its not as if Capitalism is any better in that regards.