The defense is getting paid millions to carry water for the Shacklers, you don't have to.
>You can't convict people on "rare" behavior.
You absolutely can, what are you talking about? The entire basis of criminal negligence is based on what an reasonable actor would do. I find it hard to believe that a "reasonable" CEO would effectively dial R&D spending to 0. At the very least other shareholders could sue for securities fraud.
>Yeah, the flip side is going after them jack ma style.
I'm not sure your what the problem with this is? I have no problem with the state going after billionaires who act criminally negligent nor do I have any problem with the state going after anyone else who breaks the law. Why would I sacrifice millions of Americans and the potential future of the country for a couple of bad actors. If I take your "China bad" argument at face value, why should America cripple it's own population during the critical moment when it will need to answer to Chinese hegemony? I guess it would be a sick just desserts for China to exercise power over an opiod addicted west.
>Should companies that are currently being sued be prevented from paying out dividends? What about companies that are being sued all the time, or frivolous lawsuits?
You are talking hypotheticals, but the law isn't C++ code. Intent matters, which is why we have judges. It's my belief the prosecution should be able to show that the Sacklers intentionally sabotaged Purdue pharma in an effort to extract as much capital as possible before the federal government and other litigious parties sued Purdue Pharma. That would be fraudulent transfer - they weren't paying themselves massive dividends to "diversify their portfolio", they were doing it to prevent their assets from being frozen. The most vile part about it is the fact they knowingly engaged in what should be a criminal enterprise and got away with it - this is something that simply shouldn't be allowed to happen in future. Again, the economic burden from opiod misuse costs us a cool $80B according to the CDC. That's your tax dollars cleaning up the mess of this criminal enterprise. Those are families destroyed that now have to depend on the welfare state.
It's the view that the defense is going to argue and the prosecution will have to disprove.
>It's rare for any corporation to distribute most, if not all, of a companies FCF to shareholders
You can't convict people on "rare" behavior.
>then this kind of shareholder enrichment could be argued to be a gross mismanagement of company funds.
It's a private company. They have wide latitude to do whatever they want.
>And despite what the letter of the law says, I can't imagine wanting to support such a system where once can knowingly poison middle America for decades and run away with profits.
Yeah, the flip side is going after them jack ma style.
>This isn't a case where they were just "diversifying" as good financial advice - they foresaw their litigation issues in 2008. The fact it took more than 10 years to get to the court has more to do with the slowness of our justice system rather than the Sackler's financial savvy.
That does raise an interesting issue. If there's threat of litigation, how much money should you have to keep on hand? That should prevent the issue we saw with perdue. Should companies that are currently being sued be prevented from paying out dividends? What about companies that are being sued all the time, or frivolous lawsuits? What if the lawyers in 2008 claim (or even honestly believe) that the lawsuits have a slim chance of succeeding?