but their owners don't share the same liability as the company. The entire reason the concept of companies exist is to create a separate entity that isn't a person.
To put it another way when a company breaks the law should its shareholders (aka owners) go to prison?
> To put it another way when a company breaks the law should its shareholders (aka owners) go to prison?
Forfeiting dividends+penalty that were the product of illegal or negligent corporate practices seems like a reasonable start.
Stated more broadly: As far as investing in unethical and anti-consumer practices is a winner now - society would be better served if the opposite were true.
> To put it another way when a company breaks the law should its shareholders (aka owners) go to prison?
The governing body of a corporation isn't its shareholders.
If you're asking what happens if a company breaks the law, then look up VW Dieselgate. Yes, some executives were prosecuted; yes, some of them went to jail.
I'm not sure what (company) shareholders have to do with this.
"In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued. Granting non-human entities personhood is a Western concept applied to corporations."
> That a company isn't a person. We know this because a person has rights a company doesn't
It would appear that this view is not widespread:
"In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "legal person" is that some legal persons are not people: companies and corporations are "persons" legally speaking (they can legally do most of the things an ordinary person can do), but they are not people in a literal sense (human beings)."
IMO this is a red herring. A corporation's right to hold property, enter into contracts and to sue or be sued might be technically called "corporate personhood", but this is very different from what laypeople mean when they compare companies and people.