Seems out of proportion given 1) Google was willing to settle for <$10M with Ron and 2) Equifax only paid ~2x for leaking pretty much 50% of the SSNs in the country[1]...
Does it? The guy says he has $50M-$100M and it seems like most (all?) of that came from selling Otto to Uber. And he intentionally didn't settle. Seems like if the value of the sell was based on Google's IP which he had contracted to not share, then this is not really an unexpected outcome?
The difference is that Lewandowski realized the value of the IP with the sale of the company. If the jury decides trade secrets made up x% of the company, he owes that percent of his proceeds. IMO, IANAL.
Arbitration panel, in this case. The real answer is that the legal system is not set up to keep a globally consistent harm_done->liability map. For one thing, the contents of employment contracts may lead to different damages in otherwise identical circumstances. For another thing, even if the circumstances were identical, it would be inefficient for justices to have to search every other possible case to make sure they are consistent with each other one. The law is a fuzzy rule system, not a perfect logical construct.
When the fine is already > than his net worth does it make sense to increase it further? The actual impact on him won't change, and no more money will actually be recovered.