Why is NASA asking for less than 14% of the actual damages?
Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
31–40 of 231 posts
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#32the best thing is how the "company" (or corporation) is to blame. so none of the actual individual humans who did this is at fault here. at worst they would be fired and go to work somewhere else. which is compeletely fine. and with a fine like that, this is just a "cost of doing business" for the corporation. maybe one day terribly criminal corporations should be forcefully disbanded as punishment.
This is completely inaccurate. Corporate liability protection only extends to civil financial issues, any real property crimes (ie. fraud, murder, etc) 'pierces the corporate veil' and ultimately are filed against the people who performed it.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's really hard to push onto employees as it's hard to determine if they were acting on their own or being pressured into doing such things. (as even acting on one's own can be motivated by unhealthy stress or such things which can be outside of their control / responsibility.) that being said, for the incurred loss, 46 million is tiny.
Personally, I think it should be the board + CEO who goes to prison when it is a corporation that does something like this. Don't trust someone enough? Don't hire! Disclosure: My ulterior motive is that I think corporations are way too big and also I found the Sun Tzu story of killing a general very interesting. > Sun Tzu said: "If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood,…
> Don't trust someone enough? Don't hire!
This is 100% impossible to carry out at the scale of a corporation. You don't have enough data about a person staging in front of you to bet a prison sentence on their never ever doing anything wrong, maybe unless you've been friends with them for years. The board+CEO have even less visibility and control over hiring decisions made by middle managers. You would make every leadership position a game of Russian roulette.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, how is the penalty only $46 million? Should be multiple billions of dollars. And the employees who faked the tests should be in prison.
it's really hard to push onto employees as it's hard to determine if they were acting on their own or being pressured into doing such things. (as even acting on one's own can be motivated by unhealthy stress or such things which can be outside of their control / responsibility.) that being said, for the incurred loss, 46 million is tiny.
If it was an individual, then the company itself should have discovered it years ago through an internal audit or a secondary check / re-certification - they didn't do that. They had fifteen years or however long it was to find that out.
They didn't catch it themselves, they didn't take care of it themselves; that means the company as a whole is responsible.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#35The linked DOJ report has far more detail [0]. On the penalties themselves: According to court documents, SPI has agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, and SEI has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today charging the company with mail fraud. As part of the plea agreement, SPI has agreed to pay $34.1 million in combined restitution to NASA,…
The deferred prosecution agreement essentially means that as long as the SEI adheres to the financial terms of the plea agreement the government will eventually drop the charges [0]. That's an amazing deal in its generosity and I'm sure that the financial penalties levied are outweighed by the financial gain realized over the years of their fraudulent activity. The rationale for not pursuing the company for the full…
Probably "jobs". :(
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Destruction of $700m property due to negligence certainly seems jailworthy to me. At the very least, this company should be paying a fine which actually recovers the damages.
Last time I was up for jury duty, I was asked to consider a sentence of up to 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving a stolen Xbox.
That's insane.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Destruction of $700m property due to negligence certainly seems jailworthy to me. At the very least, this company should be paying a fine which actually recovers the damages.
That can only be done if first, it can be proven that it was poor materials that caused the failure, and two, it's only useful if the company can actually afford a fine like that. You also have to consider what your motivation behind punishment is; is it re-education? Is it compensation of damages? Or is it to just completely bankrupt the company because Never Again? I mean in that last case, NASA and the US as a who…
Prison serves the purpose of deterrence, while the fine serves the purpose of compensation. Some amount of forgiveness is actually better for everyone, but that doesn't excuse the responsibility for restitution.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#38Wonder if Hydro in turn will file criminal charges. They bought the business unit at fault here in 2000[1]. Surely they could hold someone accountable for fraud that way? They thought they bought a business capable of producing quality parts, but didn't end up getting that. Like the other posters in this thread I feel like the $46m fine shouldn't be the end of this. [1] https://www.hydro.com/no-NO/media/news/2019/hyd…
Only governments can file criminal charges.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#39The linked DOJ report has far more detail [0]. On the penalties themselves: According to court documents, SPI has agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, and SEI has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today charging the company with mail fraud. As part of the plea agreement, SPI has agreed to pay $34.1 million in combined restitution to NASA,…
The deferred prosecution agreement essentially means that as long as the SEI adheres to the financial terms of the plea agreement the government will eventually drop the charges [0]. That's an amazing deal in its generosity and I'm sure that the financial penalties levied are outweighed by the financial gain realized over the years of their fraudulent activity. The rationale for not pursuing the company for the full…
This is a worthwhile book that might help clear up some of your bewilderment at why corporate crime cases so often turn out so unsatisfactorily.
https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-Prosecute...
My personal TL;DR from a couple of years ago if you don't have the time to read the book:
- It's very hard for prosecutors to secure a criminal conviction even in the most blatant cases of wrongdoing.
- Prosecutors care too much about their win rate to risk trials.
- Prosecutors have fallen into a trap where they're so dependent on the policy of offering generous non-prosecution or deferred-prosecution agreements if the company comes forward and volunteers evidence, they've become incapable of actually executing on a complex criminal investigation anymore.
- There's intense political pressure to not punish shareholders for management's misdeeds.
Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure
#40the best thing is how the "company" (or corporation) is to blame. so none of the actual individual humans who did this is at fault here. at worst they would be fired and go to work somewhere else. which is compeletely fine. and with a fine like that, this is just a "cost of doing business" for the corporation. maybe one day terribly criminal corporations should be forcefully disbanded as punishment.
This is completely inaccurate. Corporate liability protection only extends to civil financial issues, any real property crimes (ie. fraud, murder, etc) 'pierces the corporate veil' and ultimately are filed against the people who performed it.
According to other comments here the company plead guilty to (criminal) fraud. So no it is not completely inaccurate.