Comment by mrandish

Comment by mrandish 17 hours ago

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> while a corporation is easy to fine, it's hard to put in prison...

IANAL, but I believe in at least some scenarios, officer(s) of U.S. corporations can go to jail if they are responsible for the directing the corporation to commit certain offending actions (despite not physically doing it themselves). To be clear, I'm not just talking about personal liability for fraud, insider trading, etc they may have committed themselves.

A recent example might be when Adobe was fucking around repeatedly making it virtually impossible for users to cancel Creative Cloud subscriptions - despite having already agreed to do so. IIRC the Justice Department issued a warning if it wasn't fixed immediately, they'd prosecute the Executive Vice President responsible for the business unit. Their press release named the guy and emphasized the consequences for continued non-compliance could include that guy going to jail.

zrail 16 hours ago

Another pertinent example: (in the US) corporate officers are personally liable unpaid wages and can serve time for willfully neglecting to pay their workers.

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  • ajdlinux 13 hours ago

    In Australia, if a company fails to pay its Goods and Services Tax, or its withholding payments for its employees' income tax, or Superannuation Guarantee (retirement fund contributions), each and every director is personally liable - unless they can prove (and the onus of proof is on them, not the Tax Office) that they had a reasonable excuse for why they weren't active in managing the company, or took all reasonable steps to get the company to either pay the debt or go into bankruptcy the lawful way.

    Importantly, there is no "wilful" requirement and it applies to all directors, not just those who actively participated in misconduct. If you weren't involved, you have to prove that you actively tried to stop it, or that you weren't managing the company for a specific reason such as being sick. You were the director who mostly turned up to board meetings to help them meet quorum, you trusted the other directors on the board had things under control and you were completely unaware of the debts? Too bad, liable. You hired external advisers, delegated to them, and they didn't do it? Too bad! You decided to wash your hands of the whole thing, and resigned from the board, but didn't actively try to rectify the situation first? Yep, they're still coming for you.

    (I believe the criminal convictions with prison time only really kick in for those who actively participated in tax fraud or who refuse to pay their director penalties.)

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