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Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

reuters.com

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Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#31

Post by [deleted] »

aidenn0 wrote: post #28
advisedwang wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you admit to a crime while testifying in a non-criminal matter, you can be charged with that crime and that testimony can be used against you. Therefore you can take the 5th in non-criminal cases - as you have a right not to incriminate yourself in future criminal matters. Therefore non-criminal courts can and do grant immunity against future prosecution (although I'm not sure if it's jurisdictional, ie whether fe…

TFA is a bout civil immunity though, not criminal immunity. The first paragraph talks about the board of TWC allegedly knowing about Weinstein paying off people accusing him. One could make the argument that not acting on this knowledge to protect the value of the is an abrogation of their duties as board members. However the board was granted immunity in Chapter 11, so no such arguments can be advanced in court now.

[deleted]

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#32

Post by naasking »

dragontamer wrote: post #3

It should be noted that giving criminals immunity is the entire damn point of the system. The point of "immunity" is so that the lower-level criminals lose their 5th Amendment rights, and are therefore compelled to present evidence against their boss. The 5th Amendment in the USA states "Right against self-incrimination", but if you have immunity, you cannot self-incriminate. So once you sign that immunity document,…

> Without the presentation of this evidence, you never get a guilty plea.

Firstly, I don't necessarily agree that you could never get a guilty plea. The government has lots of resources and the threat of scrutinizing you and going after you for years is a significant pressure. For sure this can be abused, but my point is only that this blanket assumption that the government just has to grant immunity or throw up its hands seems like a false choice.

Secondly, total immunity is a pretty broad guarantee though. Why not trade a maximum penalty for that evidence, instead of no penalty at all?

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#33

Post by feet »

judge2020 wrote: post #25
whatwherewhy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not really. The owners are ultimately responsible for the company's behavior.

And yet the owners rely on the market/consumer giving them money to put food on the table and afford a roof over their head. Which is to say, user?id=delusional above was mostly joking.

Corporations respond to profit motives above all else, but there are still humans making those decisions within the corporations

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#34

Post by dragontamer »

naasking wrote: post #32
dragontamer wrote: post #3

It should be noted that giving criminals immunity is the entire damn point of the system. The point of "immunity" is so that the lower-level criminals lose their 5th Amendment rights, and are therefore compelled to present evidence against their boss. The 5th Amendment in the USA states "Right against self-incrimination", but if you have immunity, you cannot self-incriminate. So once you sign that immunity document,…

> Without the presentation of this evidence, you never get a guilty plea. Firstly, I don't necessarily agree that you could never get a guilty plea. The government has lots of resources and the threat of scrutinizing you and going after you for years is a significant pressure. For sure this can be abused, but my point is only that this blanket assumption that the government just has to grant immunity or throw up its…

> Why not trade a maximum penalty for that evidence

Because of 5th Amendment issues.

If there's a penalty associated with talking about evidence, then they'll just plead the 5th Amendment. Only with total immunity can you bypass the 5th Amendment and _FORCE_ them to talk.

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#35

Post by gruez »

naasking wrote: post #32
dragontamer wrote: post #3

It should be noted that giving criminals immunity is the entire damn point of the system. The point of "immunity" is so that the lower-level criminals lose their 5th Amendment rights, and are therefore compelled to present evidence against their boss. The 5th Amendment in the USA states "Right against self-incrimination", but if you have immunity, you cannot self-incriminate. So once you sign that immunity document,…

> Without the presentation of this evidence, you never get a guilty plea. Firstly, I don't necessarily agree that you could never get a guilty plea. The government has lots of resources and the threat of scrutinizing you and going after you for years is a significant pressure. For sure this can be abused, but my point is only that this blanket assumption that the government just has to grant immunity or throw up its…

>Firstly, I don't necessarily agree that you could never get a guilty plea. The government has lots of resources and the threat of scrutinizing you and going after you for years is a significant pressure

Realistically speaking government resources is still limited. They can bring the hammer down on Julian Assange because he's a high profile person they want to make an example of, but that approach isn't scalable for every mid level manager that they want to investigate.

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#36

Post by naasking »

dragontamer wrote: post #34
naasking wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without the presentation of this evidence, you never get a guilty plea. Firstly, I don't necessarily agree that you could never get a guilty plea. The government has lots of resources and the threat of scrutinizing you and going after you for years is a significant pressure. For sure this can be abused, but my point is only that this blanket assumption that the government just has to grant immunity or throw up its…

> Why not trade a maximum penalty for that evidence Because of 5th Amendment issues. If there's a penalty associated with talking about evidence, then they'll just plead the 5th Amendment. Only with total immunity can you bypass the 5th Amendment and _FORCE_ them to talk.

Sorry, I don't see how that follows. A guarantee that "you will only get sentenced for X years regardless of what you admit" does not seem meaningfully different if X is zero or one.

edit: not meaningfully different with respect to the 5th, obviously it's meaningfully different with respect to "justice", as getting off scott free rubs many people the wrng way.

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#37

Post by dragontamer »

naasking wrote: post #36
dragontamer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not trade a maximum penalty for that evidence Because of 5th Amendment issues. If there's a penalty associated with talking about evidence, then they'll just plead the 5th Amendment. Only with total immunity can you bypass the 5th Amendment and _FORCE_ them to talk.

Sorry, I don't see how that follows. A guarantee that "you will only get sentenced for X years regardless of what you admit" does not seem meaningfully different if X is zero or one. edit: not meaningfully different with respect to the 5th, obviously it's meaningfully different with respect to "justice", as getting off scott free rubs many people the wrng way.

If X is zero, you did not admit to the crime (and therefore, the 5th Amendment doesn't apply)

If X is non-zero, you admit to the crime (and therefore, retain the ability to plead the 5th).

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#38

Post by lazide »

whatwherewhy wrote: post #23
delusional wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the owners what the market wants. Really you, the consumer, is responsible!

Well not really. The owners are ultimately responsible for the company's behavior.

The shareholders will end up with the valuation they end up with, but are immune from prosecution in all but the most explicit and egregious cases.

If they vote in directors, which they suspect will hire a criminal CEO, that’s enough levels of indirection that unless they write a memo explicitly stating to do so (and maybe even then!), the worst outcome for them is the valuation of the company drops to zero and they lose their capital, minus whatever dividends have been pulled out.

That is barring potential criminal conspiracy anyway, which would require concrete actions in furtherance of a conspiracy, which would be difficult to prove without something like that memo.

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#39

Post by cool_dude85 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24
cool_dude85 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Weinstein is the boss. So you'd never give him immunity to the case, he's the target. In the article it says that Weinstein was practically given immunity to personal lawsuits related to the class action. Individual members of the class were able to retain the right to sue him personally in exchange for taking 1/4 of their payout in the bankruptcy proceedings. Anyway, aside from the specific inaccuracy of what you'r…

> the article it says that Weinstein was practically given immunity to personal lawsuits Weinstein is in jail. (The victims "could opt out of giving lawsuit immunity to Harvey Weinstein himself - but only if they agreed to reduce their portion of the settlement payout by 75%," which seems fine, this is a civil proceeding and the point of bankruptcy is to draw a line under liability.) The "blanket immunity" in the HN…

> this is a civil proceeding and the point of bankruptcy is to draw a line under liability.

This is a bankruptcy proceeding regarding the liability of Weinstein's company. What's that got to do with Harvey Weinstein's, the living person's, liability, other than the fact that you can convince a judge to waive it? Much less the people who served as the company's BoD?

Re: Bankruptcy court gave blanket immunity to executives in 9 out of 10 major cases

#40

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #39
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the article it says that Weinstein was practically given immunity to personal lawsuits Weinstein is in jail. (The victims "could opt out of giving lawsuit immunity to Harvey Weinstein himself - but only if they agreed to reduce their portion of the settlement payout by 75%," which seems fine, this is a civil proceeding and the point of bankruptcy is to draw a line under liability.) The "blanket immunity" in the HN…

> this is a civil proceeding and the point of bankruptcy is to draw a line under liability. This is a bankruptcy proceeding regarding the liability of Weinstein's company. What's that got to do with Harvey Weinstein's, the living person's, liability, other than the fact that you can convince a judge to waive it? Much less the people who served as the company's BoD?

> What's that got to do with Harvey Weinstein's, the living person's, liability

Weinstein the person caused the company’s liability. The insurers paying out for the latter are also connected to the former. They won’t agree to a bankruptcy plan that leaves them on the hook for further litigation.

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