Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we are now trying to work from axioms to a legal question neither of us are qualified to answer. But my current understanding is: working for a giant company while knowingly breaking the law, whether or not your company tells you to do it, does not shield you in any way from criminal liability. As I understand it, the "interesting" questions here are the extent to which you can hold directors or even major sh…
I'm certainly going to ask my corporate lawyer friends next time I see them. But my disagreement is with the "does not shield you in any way", and where I say there is a de facto buffer. If I commit a crime while working for Dow Chemical, the plaintiff must prove that (1) a crime was committed and (2) that I was personally responsible for it being committed. This sounds exactly like what would need to be proved if I…
With regards to your (1), (2) predicates: that's the case in every crime! Corporations present the additional problem of whether a person who instructed (or set up an incentive system that effectively instructed) you to commit a crime is also criminally liable. But your boss's liability, so far as I understand the law, never shields you from liability.
We want there to be joint liability between the person who commits the crime and the person who orders and profits from the crime. I'm ready to believe it's challenging to achieve that; that often only the people who actually commit crimes are charged in these corporate cases. But this subthread started because I read your first comment as suggesting that, simply by dint of committing a crime at a corporation, the alter ego liability of the corporation protected criminals. I do not believe that.