[isr]

How about this. For criminal behaviour which crosses a certain $ threshold (as in, what size of fine is levied by the courts/fed authorities), the entire remuneration given to anyone who served on the board of directors is considered forfeit, and used to pay the fine. That means seizing secondary properties from current or ex directors, and other assets.

Once that pool is exhausted, then you ding the shareholders (via draining the company's own coffers).

Sure, this would give rise to some schemes of "how do I squirrel away my bonuses, in case they come after me tomorrow", but hubris & the unpredictability of this would still lead to some big, eye watering examples. Which would have the necessary deterrent effect.

And yes, this WOULD be justice. Those who did the wrong, and profited from it, SHOULD pay.

[account42]

> Sure, this would give rise to some schemes of "how do I squirrel away my bonuses, in case they come after me tomorrow", but hubris & the unpredictability of this would still lead to some big, eye watering examples. Which would have the necessary deterrent effect.

The simple solution to such games is the same as with other monetary fines for individuals: if you can't pay the fine, you go to jail.

[zo1]

I'm a full-on free market freedom person, but even I'd agree with this kind of stuff at this point.

One thing we really need to be careful to avoid whilst going down this proposed route, is to not mimic the failure mode of socialist/communist entities. I.e. Whereby performance is mandated (produce X amount of grain), along with constraints and other mandates that make the first or all mandates impossible to achieve at the same time, thereby guaranteeing failure and/or reporting shenanigans.

E.g. in our current world context. Mandating increases in hiring as a percentage, but then also giving a mandate that we can only add female/non-white employees; all while existing in a male/white dominated pool of applicants. We have to give reasonable and understandable growth / performance mandates, and not pie in the sky stuff that takes generations to fix but we want it done by next quarter.