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by shiroiuma 976 days ago
Maybe they need something in bankruptcy law that requires the executives to stick around, at low pay, to do their jobs and unwind the company. After all, they're the ones who made it fail. Why should they be allowed to walk away?

If a regular individual declares bankruptcy and then doesn't bother doing any of the required paperwork and legal stuff, saying the court needs to pay them top dollar for their time, things will not go well for them.
2 comments
broken-kebab 975 days ago
You mixed up a lot of things here. On practical side: execs, and accounting already legally must do paperwork, however shareholders want them to go well beyond that. And you can't force people to do job properly just by legally obliging them, otherwise Soviet Union would not fail.

On moral side: business in general (and startups especially) requires navigation between things many of which are unpredictable, and plenty are beyond your control. Also I've seen startups failing because of software bugs, and technical limitations. In this particular case, do you know about any obvious wrongdoing? If not you probably shouldn't auto-assigning blame on "them".

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paulddraper 975 days ago
> Why should they be allowed to walk away?

Because we decided ages ago that compelled labor is a bad idea.

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shiroiuma 973 days ago
Again, try declaring bankruptcy, and then refusing to do any more paperwork or show up for the bankruptcy hearing with the judge, and see how it goes for you.

In fact, bankruptcy is a process that, if you follow the rules, is beneficial to you: you get protection from your creditors so that your loss is minimized. If you refuse to do the labor to follow this process, you won't have any protection and things will go badly for you. I don't see why it should be different for the owners and executives of a corporation. These people are not employees.

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PawgerZ 975 days ago
Sorry to be pedantic, but according to the 13th ammendment, compelled labor is allowed as a punishment of crime.

To be real, if the executives at a company do commit crimes that lead to the failure of the company, I think they should be on the hook for that.

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paulddraper 975 days ago
> if the executives at a company do commit crimes that lead to the failure of the company, I think they should be on the hook for that

Yes, e.g. Theranos.

But the majority of failed businesses fail for reasons that have nothing to do with crime.

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