It seems like the full story is always less than reputable contractors. Set up fresh accounts yourself, people!
Also, banned by Google != less than reputable.
Big problem is that the current policy seems to insufficiently discriminatory between bad actors and accidental policy infringement. Perhaps they can start with short bans and rapidly increase ban length on recidivism.
Once your app is flagged as spam/scam, the only way to recover is get a human review from Google.
...however, let's consider the other possibility: Google is in a perpetual game of whack-a-mole with nefarious actors who are the ones putting the scams, malware filled trash, etc, on the Android store. They get knocked down and pop up again under a new account, $25 later. These people are never going to admit their actions when telling the tale, however, so I'm always a little skeptical.
That was one thing I appreciated about Apple's process, at least for a company account -- I had to provide various business documents, get a business search done, etc. If I get knocked down, I can't simply make up a new name and appear again. Clearly it isn't perfect, but it does seem to reduce the scum churn.
Would a bank hire a security company that has a previous bank robber on staff? Would you put your kids in a school that has a previous child molester on staff?
A more comparable analogy would be one where the hypothetical security company isn't told who of their staff is banned, or for what reason they were banned. Maybe they were a bank robber, or maybe they were just doing business with bitcoin, and it's the bank's policy to ban all such businesses. And the security company isn't just not hired - they're banned from being hired ever again, from 88% of all banks in the world.
That's what background checks are for. If you're hiring someone, it is your responsibility.
This wasn't a case of someone having had a previous developer account, but of someone having being banned for posting malware on the Play store.