[edmundsauto]

I think the fine needs to be higher than the profit difference between the (illegal) and not illegal option.

If you have a legal route to $1M and an illegal route to $1.5M, the rational calculation for fines is against the $0.5M delta, not the full amount.

[nothercastle]

The illegal 1.5 is always the optimal game theory choice because the chance of getting caught is not 100%

[BobaFloutist]

To use an absurd example just to make it incredibly obvious why what you said doesn't make sense, would that hold up if the fine if caught was $10 trillion dollars?

[nothercastle]

Then shareholders would demand executives have skin in the game and suffer if a company got the death penalty like you describe. Would likely lead to a much better world. Golden parachutes would not be a thing if shareholders got liquidated like that.

[recursive]

Only if they're mutually exclusive.