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Comment by spocklivelong | Hacker News Reader

I hope that at least one executive ends us spending some jail time, instead of settling the case (which I think is most likely). Price fixing generic drugs will leave out access to those that are most financially vulnerable, all while coporationss make big bucks.

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I think at least one is likely to go to prison, like in the Christie's/sotheby's case, especially if someone flips and acts as an informant. Dont count on it being for very long though.

If officers had to go to jail when their corporations committed crimes then you'd never be able to get competent capitalists to run them. Society and the stockholders would suffer.

SOX already sets up officers to be liable for financial statements, so I don't think this is relevant.

You're saying that there aren't any honest competent capitalists and that in order to be a "competent capitalist", one must be a crook.

You can't conceive of a world where good people can run companies honestly. The only way they'd accept money to run a company is if they're allowed to get away with committing crimes.

I don't even know how to respond this one.

Awww, poor stockholders.

Maybe we'd see a shift toward companies actually being run in responsible and ethical ways, instead of the present, near total disconnect from reasonable actions and constraints.

You have to personally break a law to go to prison.

If a law was broken by a corporation, how could at least one person in that corporation not be guilty of breaking that law? Was it the corporation's AI that did it?

Because you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that one person broke a specific law. That's not always evident.

Ethics laundering. Like money laundering.

    “Through phone calls, text messages, emails, corporate
    conventions, and cozy dinner parties, generic
    pharmaceutical executives were in constant communication,
    colluding to fix prices and restrain competition”

These things were done by people. Everyone who participated in this _personally_ conspired to commit a crime. Of course this is probably not how it will be seen in the eyes of the legal system.

It will be seen that way - people have gone to jail for antitrust stuff. Especially if one person flips on the others. Is it guaranteed to happen? No, but it might, and it has before.

That’s one part, the other part is the government has to have a preponderance of evidence of wrongdoing.

Courts and lawyers don’t just take the word of the government as ironclad word of god and pronounce judgement.

Is it seedy, do people do things to hide evidence, do they go to the edge of the law? Yes of course, but the state still has to prove it’s case.

In the Syprine case, the company was convicted of price fixing by the US supreme court. The company changed its name and then just continued with the same business practices. No hands were really slapped.

Companies are made up of people - so if the company you control breaks the law, you have personally broken the law.

Well, management responsibility is regulated under CFR 21 820 for medical devices. There are equivalent regulations for pharma.

Executives do go to (probation it turns out and apparently not jail all the time) because their company broke the law and they're responsible for the company.

https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/new-fda-strategy-crimin...

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