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Comment by thedanbob | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to see the courts force Equifax to pay $X to everyone whose information they leaked, whether they request it or not. But this settlement doesn't seem to be about actually punishing Equifax at all or fairly recompensing those affected.

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This is a very, very imperfect method of figuring out the key question here ("Would Equifax just file for bankruptcy?"), but their enterprise value is ~$20B, and paying out $125 per person would cost over $18B, so it seems pretty clear you'd need to reduce the per person payout. It would take more work than I can put in right now to decide what it should be, but finger in the wind halving it seems like the right starting point.

Bankruptcy seems quite appropriate. They not only failed to maintain the security of the data, they also provided no identity theft protection to the public (unless you asked for it), and as a company appeared to have no plan for this event. Given that they were entrusted with the identity data for basically all Americans, that is inexcusable.

> Bankruptcy seems quite appropriate.

Hmm... Would not they just file for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructure their debts (i.e., write those pesky $125 payments off), then emerge in a better shape than they were?

That's not how bankruptcy works. The court and trustee divide the assets across creditors according to debt seniority.

(i.e., write those pesky $125 payments off)

What does that mean? As far as I know, you can't just announce that you're "writing off" debts and have them magically disappear.

You sell the company at a low price to a friend and pay out the low sum to the plaintiffs. This would need approval under chapter 11, I guess, and if you sell the company it includes the debt, so they'd have to be tricky about it and just sell the meat or the milk, not the whole cow. Ironically, this invariably means selling the customer data (but also existing contracts and what not). IANAL

The bankruptcy judge and trustee wouldn't approve an asset sale at significantly less than fair market value.

Sorry, should have been more clear: I wasn't commenting on whether or not bankruptcy is fair to Equifax or not, I was meant "Would Equifax avoid paying the money out via bankruptcy protections (from which companies can actually emerge from in better position)?" I assumed the OP cared primarily about receiving the settlement.

> provided no identity theft protection to the public (unless you asked for it)

And unless you're _exceedingly_ careful and diligent, after a short period of time, you will be paying them to continue it.

Would bankruptcy be so bad? “Sorry, Equifax. Due to some recent financial irresponsibility, we’ve unfortunately had to lower your score. To zero.”

Clarified above, but I was thinking about likelihood of receiving the settlement, not fairness to Equifax. A settlement number so punitive it would put them out of business would substantially reduce the chances of those impacted receiving more than a token amount.

On the other hand, driving the value of their stock to zero would be a very effective deterrent against future bad behavior.

>On the other hand, driving the value of their stock to zero would be a very effective deterrent against future bad behavior.

Perfect!

Then, we can try killing people who commit heinous crimes, or at the very least lock them up for the duration of their lives. When you make a mistake, you and everyone around you should pay, regardless of their involvement or actual harm done to others. Dearly. Why has no one thought of this? I have no worries, because me and the work I do are without flaws. Sounds like Utopia.

Ha!

But, really, I think a corporate "death penalty" would be much more justifiable than a corporeal one. The company can reform its business and try again; whatever's left of it (the ultimate shareholders) could even be made whole (with cash) if the decision was egregiously bad. Natural people, on the other hand, aren't coming back from the dead.

I don't follow the "perfection" part of your comment. I'm certainly not suggesting that this be the only remedy, but this is, as things go, pretty bad, and maybe it deserves a pretty harsh punishment.

If your business leaked millions of private records in a similar manner, would you expect to remain in business afterward?

As I clarified above, I was thinking about whether or not the 147M affected would actually receive anything, not about fairness of the punishment.

> I'd like to see the courts force Equifax to pay $X to everyone whose information they leaked, whether they request it or not.

Unfortunately I'm not sure that's an option:

"You can’t ask the Court to order a larger settlement; the Court can only approve or deny the settlement as it is."

Denying the settlement leaves open the possibility of a larger one. The court just can't order the subsequent negotiation have a specific result.

Which is not what the parent comment was going for. It said, "I'd like to see the courts force Equifax [...]".

Now it's just semantics. Denying the current settlement would inevitably result in a larger settlement, unless everyone appealing to the courts is saying that the $125 repayment is too much.

How is this just semantics? If they have to do things over, they might just reach a different settlement than paying individual people $X. Or heck, there's always a chance they won't agree and will have to battle it out in court. Or maybe something else that I can't think of. It might be likely that they'd come up with a better payment, but it seems far inevitable to me.

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