[cnst]

Look into the Superfund sites in the US of A. Most of the things done in the 80s are now being cleaned up by the federal government at taxpayer's expense. (It's not uncommon to re-clean the sites that have already been cleaned before, either.) Were any CEOs of any of those companies brought to justice for the environmental pollution they have produced?!

[samatman]

Many of them are out of business.

Others weren't breaking the law. That's actually pretty important: our legal system doesn't allow us to seek justice for criminal behavior which wasn't criminal at the time, and mostly that's a good thing.

That's what Superfund is all about, really. Companies have been fined and sued into bankruptcy for breaking regulations that actually existed, though by no means all of the ones that deserved it.

[refurb]

A LOT of those superfund sites were government sites, mostly military bases. And those sites were grossly polluted before significant environmental regulations went into place.

Look at the notorious Love Canal. The company got permission to dump toxic waste into a pit. And after Occidental bought the company, they were required to pay for the clean up.