The point is simply standard economic law analysis - the idea is to make (punishment * probability of being caught) > expected gain from the crime. The theory is that if you remove the incentive for the behavior you wish to discourage, people will cut out.

There are many criticisms of the approach, but those are mostly about crimes committed by individuals, not corporations. When you're talking about HugeCo abusing customers, I think seriously punitive fines can work. But you need to make them painful enough that at least the board, and preferably the shareholders, want to ask questions about how exactly they know this won't happen again.

> I think the endgame from such a punishment regime is companies will reorganize their corporate structure to section everything off from such liabilities.

Of course they will. Any time a corporate entity can construct legal structures to capture more, shed externalities or shift risk, it will. Why wouldn't it? "We have a legal obligation to maximize profit..."

But that's not the "endgame of such a regime", that's normal business.