Comment by jojomodding

Comment by jojomodding 21 hours ago

7 replies

This is already the case. Or rather, a corporation can not (e.g.) commit murder or theft because that usually requires some physical action. That physical action will be performed by a human, who can then be found guilty. If he was ordered to do so by (e.g.) the board, the board will be held as accessory to the crime and cam also be found guilty.

The problem is just that the board can usually claim they did not know, and that they have deep pockets to afford good attorneys. To get around the first thing, you have strict liability laws.

Strict liability laws, though, are how you end up with the situation where barkeepers are criminally liable for selling alcohol to underage people, even if they could not have known the buyer was underage (and that's about the only instance of strict liability in criminal law). I personally find this very unjust and would rather that strict liability was not part of criminal law.

PopAlongKid 19 hours ago

> a corporation can not (e.g.) commit murder or theft because that usually requires some physical action.

Not true. Consider investor-owned utility PG&E in northern California.

"While on probation [for previous felonies], PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter for a 2018 wildfire that wiped out the town of Paradise, about 170 miles (275 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco."

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/24/1075267222/californias-embatt...

arrosenberg 20 hours ago

If they know about malfeasance and don't stop it, they are complicit; if they don't know about it, they are grossly negligent. In either case, they should be held accountable for the crimes. Maybe in an ideal world it would not be that way, but since we are seeing corruption run amok in corporate board rooms, it's clear they need a greater incentive to police their organizations.

  • thewebguyd 19 hours ago

    What we have is a severe lack of enforcement of the laws we do have.

    We do have legal mechanisms to hold the individual people criminally liable for criminal offenses the corporation commits, the problem is we don't enforce it.

    Boeing just got off scott free for killing 338 people. DOJ told the judge to dismiss the case.

    We've also neglected to enforce our own anti-monopoly laws for far too long, and most recently when there could have been actual, real change, we let Google go with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

    The laws aren't the problem, the corrupt and paid for DoJ is the problem.

    • anon291 19 hours ago

      I mean we live in a country where 'defund the police' and 'eliminate jails' are considered somewhat mainstream legal positions (In that there are many politicians elected to office throughout the country who have held these views). All of its stems from a lack of desire to enforce standards.

      • chowells 19 hours ago

        Given that neither the police nor jails are relevant to corporate violations of the law, do you have a point other than that you don't understand either of those?

  • rcxdude 19 hours ago

    There is already a standard of evidence for this: "Knew or should have known". Which covers needing to exercise a certain standard of care, but without the overly rigid definition of strict liability (something that tends to result in very stupid and unfair situations).

  • Y_Y 16 hours ago

    What if every board must include a party commissar?