Agree about the executives but if the shareholders and employees feel enough pain they may actually do something. Right now the "punishment" doesn't cause anybody enough pain.

Shareholder pain will be slightly lower dividend or stock price. Employee pain will be unemployment. And I think that is what drives most of these low level fines. Regulators recognize the company wouldn't suffer in the short term from large fines.

I guess the fines will have to be much higher so the dividend is not just slightly lower. If employees knew their job is at stake they may also be less wiling to play along. I work in medical and we sometimes get pressure to cut corners but employees know that the FDA may shut down the whole thing so they refuse.

Shareholder can, and do, sue for damages from fines as the result of poor decisions by executives and the board.

Interesting -- are there some good examples of that happening?

The board of Google (that is, Alphabet) is currently being sued by shareholders: https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/11/shareholders-sue-alphabet...