If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies.
We have to create incentives to not invest in troublesome companies. Fines are inadequate, they incentivize buying shares in troublesome companies and then selling them before the harm comes to light.
You just go after the top four or five. It's not about proportional punishment, but about ensuring that those with enough power to actually affect outcomes feel a sense of responsibility over those outcomes whether or not they later divest.
Blindly letting a CEO commit crimes should itself be a crime, but only if there's something you could've done to prevent it--that's not most shareholders.
If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies.
We have to create incentives to not invest in troublesome companies. Fines are inadequate, they incentivize buying shares in troublesome companies and then selling them before the harm comes to light.