Comment by dgs_sgd
I want to agree with the standard “it happened under your watch and it doesn’t matter if it happened without your knowledge”, but wouldn’t it get really messy in practice?
Let’s say one particular org at a company engaged in the activity in question, generating increased profits for the whole company. Taking this approach to the extreme, literally every shareholder could be liable because they benefited from those profits.
I could be persuaded it's worth having a lower standard of liability for "sibling" orgs within a company, so that if, e.g., the billing department does something shady then the HR department doesn't necessarily bear liability for that (but execs above both still would).
But I'm kind of okay with shareholders being liable to a certain extent, as long as their liability is proportional to their benefit. Someone who had a few shares in their 401k and made a couple thousand dollars, okay, no big deal. But the prospect of having gains clawed back could make shareholders more vigilant in ensuring the company is fully aboveboard. It doesn't make sense for me to someone to rake in, say, $50 million in unrealized gains and then say "oh, I had no idea, oh well, I'll just enjoy my $50 million". It's sort of like how if a drug kingpin gets arrested, it may well be that assets of their family members are seized as ill-gotten gains.