When Wells Fargo had their credit scandal the salesmen shouldn't have been punished, their managers should've.
These things start at the top. When deadlines are pushed onto you, you don't have time to write unit tests, refactor, update dependencies.
It isn't perfect, and the imbalance of power will certainly still be an issue. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
It would just put most legal liabilities on engineers vs the org. It's a great way to protect management, that's the only thing it's going to do. That's exactly how dumb traders end up being scapegoated with each financial scandal. Any engineer who would dare report any wrong doing would be blacklisted for life from the IT industry.
Business like Equifax already have legal requirements at the org level, let's not shift all responsibility onto engineers.
It may not prevent truly unscrupulous or spineless engineers from capitulating, but it's better than the current situation.