It's corporate corruption and this type of behavior prevents companies from competing fairly. It's bigger than "corporate policy". That's like saying "theft" is against corporate policy, so when I embezzled $10K I should just get fired instead of jailed.

Netflix is a publicly traded company. They have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholder to increase shareholder value by always selecting the best interest of the shareholders. It is way beyond a corporate policy. It is stealing shareholder value.

Oh no, not the shareholder value! How high up on the org chart do employees have a direct fiduciary duty to the shareholders? Presumably there is some breakpoint below which is becomes mere incompetence.

> But to throw someone in jail for breaking essentially a corporate policy seems really off.

It "seems off" because that obviously isn't what happened.

> Jury Earlier Returned 28 Guilty Verdicts Convicting Michael Kail of Fraud and Money Laundering for Pay-To-Play Payments from Tech Startups Seeking Netflix Contracts

These are crimes, not mere violations of corporate policy.

> “Bribery and kickbacks are pernicious crimes that stifle Silicon Valley’s culture of competitive innovation,” said Acting United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds. “Michael Kail used his highly compensated Netflix position to siphon cash and valuable stock options from his tech vendors, the same vendors whose Netflix contracts he signed and whose technologies he pushed his teams to use. Such crimes come with a cost, as reflected by the prison sentence that Kail will now serve.”

So the person took bribes and hurt other tech vendors and the corporation. Sure. But suppose you hurt the organization and partners by being incompetent at your work. Or having bad judgement, or being lazy, or a million other things. Would it be okay to send those people to prison?

"Pay-to-Play" isn't illegal. I don't even know what it is. Coke pays to have their beverage in AMC theaters. Is that pay to play? Is Pepsi more worthy of that slot? "Money Laundering" is incredibly broad and can be applied to a lot of things.

Mate, they got him for numerous counts of wire fraud, money laundering, and more. These are all crimes, not mere violations of corporate policy. If you can't square your understanding of the law with what happened, it's your deficient understanding of the law that is to blame.