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A comment on ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Climate Activists. Parent comment

Re:ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Cli... by SpicyLemonZest on Friday December 06, 2024 @12:33PM (#42341956)
This seems like a confused analysis. As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant. The decision to use them is just made through a structured system of laws and penalties, rather than a subjective sense of which executives you feel are bad.
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Re:ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Cli... by gruez on Friday December 06, 2024 @12:44PM (#42342094)
>As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant.

Hardly. Enron and FTX fell because they were insolvent, not because a "corporate death penalty" was levied on them.

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Re:ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Cli... by SpicyLemonZest on Friday December 06, 2024 @01:13PM (#42342402)
Purdue, then, although a "corporate death penalty" executed in response to non-government-induced insolvency still seems relevant to me. The biggest proximate effect of shutting down a company is that all its employees become unemployed, so it's not something you'd generally want to do when there are other options on the table.
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Re:ExxonMobil's Alleged Hack-for-Hire Campaign Targeting Cli... by sofixa on Friday December 06, 2024 @01:16PM (#42342444)
> As Enron and FTX both show well, personal criminal responsibility for high level executives and a "corporate death penalty" already exist and get used when circumstances warrant

Really not comparable. Enron and FTX were both insolvent due to Ponzi scheme-esque levels of fraud by their executives. The executives were sued for misleading investors and outright fraud, including securities fraud.

Boeing killing people with negligence, or Chevron poisoning millions through negligence, resulted in nothing. Personal responsibility for executives only exists for defrauding investors or tax authorities, which is wildly insufficient. Corporate death penalty only exists if the company is literally insolvent, and even them it might get rescued (GM), which is wildly insufficient.

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