Corporations can't act, people inside the corporations act. If laws get broken, the individuals who made that choice should pay the price. This wasn't a defense of the company, I'm fine with the company getting fined here, so long as the people who did this get penalized as well.
So long as we let companies be a sort of shelter for the people inside the company, this kind of activity will continue.
Examples:
Mike Tomlin fined for blocking an on-field player, the team may have been penalized by forfeiting draft picks: https://www.nfl.com/news/mike-tomlin-fined-100-000-for-actio... They weren't: https://www.nfl.com/news/steelers-won-t-lose-draft-pick-for-...
Coaches fined $100k for not wearing face masks, teams fined $250k: https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-fines-broncos-49ers-seahawks-fo...
Saints fined $500k and stripped of draft pick: https://www.nfl.com/news/saints-fined-500k-draft-pick-patrio...
Controversial team fines: https://www.nfl.com/news/draft-picks-that-have-been-stripped...
- Falcons for fake crowd noise
- Patriots for "deflategate"
Saints were fined as a team, head coach suspended, players suspended for "bounty gate": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Saints_bounty_scan...
Team sports can be lost by a player, but must be won as a team. E.g. Kyle Williams of SF 49ers muffing two punts in the 2012-Feb-22 game against the Giants (off his knee, and the strip).
That's all I'm looking for here.
I'm not really sure why you think this distinction is important. If a sufficient enforcement/punishment was laid on a company you can bet the employee responsible will feel it. Rather in this sense because there was no real punishment the employee was commended.
The employees most responsible are the executives who signed off on, were aware of and/or managed the criminal activity.
What they felt was a gentle caress across their wrist, which some may pretend was a slap.
The fine was likely less than the cost of the C-Suites annual bonus package.
There should be at least 15 conspiracy charges in addition to the CFAA violation charge.
The important point to me about the company being liable is that a) the company itself benefited from the crime, and b) management knew about the crime happening; this wasn't a single rogue employee who did crimes and hid that fact from everyone else. (Contrast this to an employee using company resources, in secret, to commit a crime that only benefits the employee.)
And no consequences for the people involved means there's no deterrence. In the future, employees with unethical management will realize that they can do this sort of thing with little risk to their own livelihood, so why not give it a try?
