[Karunamon]

Same person, though. Without going all philosophical about it though, here's an example: let's assume there are two companies, one a sole proprietorship, the other a corporation with 10 employees.

Both companies commit the same crime, the nature of which is unimportant.

It takes 30+ years for the case to enter the judicial system. In the meantime, the guy running the first company is still there, while the 10 employees of the second company are no longer the original 10.

Is it as fair to prosecute the second one as the first one? I don't think so, because at that point you're assigning way too much value to the legal fiction of personhood. A company is made up of people, and I really don't see how there is any justice to be served in prosecuting people who didn't actually commit any crimes just because they work at a place with a certain name.

[dalke]

Corporations exist to move liability from the owners to the company, not as a way to escape liability, which seems to be your proposal. Your argument seems to be that so long as people pass through a company quickly enough, there's no long-term liability for the company?

The company must maintain the liabilities of its history. If a refining company dumped waste directly into the ground, then 30+ years later it should still be held responsible for clean up, even if all of the people involved have retired. Otherwise, who is responsible for the cleanup?

Or, suppose that we find that Disney had illegally acquired the copyrights and trademarks to Mickey Mouse from Person X. All of the people involved are long dead, though the inheritors of the estate of Person X were successful in their lawsuit. Under your view, it seems that the inheritors could not sue Disney because none of the people now at Disney committed the original crime. That's an absurd conclusion.

[megablast]

There are a number of reasons for prosecuting, from punishing wrong doing to discourage overs, to getting compensation, to punishing the people who have done wrong.

You seem to think only one of these exists.

[URSpider94]

When you prosecute a company, you're penalizing the owners, not the employees. If there's a judgment against IBM, it's likely that nobody who works there will lose their job. Certainly, nobody will go to jail. Instead, the company will make less money, which may push the stock price down.

Most significantly, going forward, corporations will weigh the potential costs of litigation against the profit of doing business with regimes committing crimes against humanity. Which is what we want.