181–190 of 214 posts
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Why not the entire C-suite and the board? Then you’d get some real accountability.
Strange this is so far outside the Overton window that it can be read as a joke. In cases involving lower valued assets, the owner is almost always punishable: his dog bites you, it's his fault. His contractor lays bad wiring that burns down your house, it's his fault. His kids misdeeds are often legally his fault. And even if he loans his car to someone who crashes into it's legally his fault. But behind a corporate…
In the case of a loaned car, you are not liable for damages that the person you loaned the car to causes(perhaps you're confusing it with insurance liability?). I don't know about the contractor case.
How is your "practical and effective" solution any different from a fine? You fine the company $300 mil, or you seize $300 mil of shares and sell them.
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> Human beings are allowed to organize for the purposes of political action and whether or not they decide to form a corporation doesn't matter because "corporation" isn't a constitutional concept Sure it does - if I am killed by a natural person due to negligence, the state can imprison the person who killed me. If I am killed by a corporation due to negligence, the state generally does not imprison any individual,…
You're still making the mistake that legal personhood is literally being a person. People can go to prison. Abstract concepts cannot.
I suspect people cynically demanding that CEOs be put in jail haven’t really dug into the facts of this or other FCPA cases. Holding the CEO liable for employee misdeeds is like holding teachers responsible for teenagers getting into fights or having sex. It’s a strong moral position to take (holding teachers accountable), but it’s wholly impractical and unfair. In a company with a million employees, it’s guaranteed…
Or, you know, like putting in jail the person directly responsible both for the deeds and the culture that promoted them...
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From the article: "But even as employees frequently raised alarm, the company’s top leaders did little to prevent Walmart from being involved in bribery and corruption schemes." Which means the "top leaders" knew of the problem, and choose to ignore it. It would be a different story if they put real effort into self policing and there was evidence they pushed the guilty contractors/etc but again: "The plea agreement,…
So the part right before your quote says: “For more than a decade, Walmart used middlemen to make dubious payments to governments around the globe in order to open new locations, United States prosecutors and securities regulators said in a settlement agreement on Thursday.” The parts you quote are the NYT reporting the prosecutor’s allegations as fact. But the passage you quoted also explains everything you need to…
Of course. What do we think Walmart level players are? Amateurs? Those kind of jobs never leave much paper trail or proof...
As the PM in one of the most corrupt governments in a small country used to say, to brush off allegations of bribery and other corruption against members of government, "Let he who has proof take it to the prosecutors"...
As in "yeah, good luck trying to prove what we did"...
(Only 2 decades later, when that party had declined, and their influence wasn't as strong, would several top officials, ex ministers etc, end up in jail for those things. Had it still be going strong, there would not be anything done...)
I suspect people cynically demanding that CEOs be put in jail haven’t really dug into the facts of this or other FCPA cases. Holding the CEO liable for employee misdeeds is like holding teachers responsible for teenagers getting into fights or having sex. It’s a strong moral position to take (holding teachers accountable), but it’s wholly impractical and unfair. In a company with a million employees, it’s guaranteed…
How are the people demanding CEOs to be jailed cynical? I'm really confused by why you chose that word.
etc etc etc. Unless the CEO knew or directed them to do so, he is one person with 24 hour days like all of us. And Walmart has thousands and thousands of top level managers to manage all aspects of his business.
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> murdering a troublesome customer This furthers the interests of the company?
Getting rid of a troublesome customer that wastes employees time and scares off other customers is definitely in the interest of the company.
I live in Africa and pay bribes on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. It’s hard to do anything at all without bribes here, and I am certainly sympathetic of it. People who don’t have experience with 3rd world countriss often think it’s a big deal bribing someone. But it’s not, it’s a simple fact of life. I don’t really see anything wrong with a company doing it either. In fact, I kind of like paying bribes. Unlike i…
Can't tell if joking or antisocial. Especially the line about "I can really just do anything I please. I have money, so it's all good." Obviously if everyone with money can do whatever they want, the trust in institutions plummets and more and more people start cheating, so one ends up with a society of cheaters who think it's normal to bribe.
In some places, you can be drunk, or even kill someone and the cops will let you go for $$. If they take you in, it's not too late, just the price increases, the prosecutor and judge want their cut. A lot of mafia people have sentences cut or charges thrown out.
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But that is how this works, the Government has a hard time proving intent without a smoking gun. The Walmart execs are smart enough not to incriminate themselves with any emails/phone calls. So the government has a fairly strong case, but Walmart gets to plea agreement which wipes one of the main pieces of evidence (effectively the bookkeeping coverup) in exchange for paying the fine and closing the case. Both sides…
If you don’t have good evidence of intent, you don’t have “a fairly strong case.” Intent is the lynchpin of criminal law, especially when you’re trying to hold someone liable who didn’t do the actual illegal act. You know what gets you a gold star as a prosecutor? Putting people in prison. The guy who put Raj Rajaratnam in prison is now a partner at one of the top law firms.
Likewise, it's not logically consistent to say " well, yeah it looks really bad but because a court can't prove it, I'm going to advocate they they are morally innocent. " Moral and legal aren't the same thing.