If there was any justice these companies would get the corporate death penalty.
I was happy and secure in the knowledge that it was locked until I had to unlock it the first time. The password I set didn't work, as they had apparently changed the log-in system with no alert (also, now the stupid log-in sends us spam e-mail that we can't opt out of).
I called them. I had my account unlocked, and the phone representative even gave me my own SS# within three minutes of being on the phone, and by answering questions that were publicly available information.
It's an absolute fucking train wreck and I wish the system as a whole and the credit companies in particular were destroyed.
The 3 questions fraud check system everyone uses to performatively pretend to ensure you are who you are, can only draw the questions it asks from — guess what — publicly available information.
It's illogical on its face.
// After identity theft, it gets worse, as thieves' fraudulent or real data will enter public records under your identity key, and now you can't pass your own check.
Would suggest replacing this in your vocabulary with “fines,” “license revocation” or “criminal penalties.” Corporate death penalties, i.e. judicial dissolution or charter revocations, while a good slogan, don’t make a lot of legal sense. As a result, I’ve found it in practice used to segregate activism and turnout operations (who like it) from rule and lawmaking influence (where it’s not a serious concept).
Massive fines, equal to market cap, or absolute liability, e.g. a $10k + legal expenses minimum owed to each person whose data leaked irrespective of actual damages, for example, are more specific and actually actionable.
No violence should be involved. Large layoffs resulting from that won't be pleasant one bit though.
Corporations are a legal fiction. What does dissolving the corporation mean? Revoking its charter? Then what happens to its assets? If you return them to shareholders, you’ve given a boon to its wealthiest, who can now re-organise it free of prior liabilities. If you liquidate them, you’ve delivered a junior fine, since with real fines the fine gets paid before creditors. If you take it, you’ve expropriated (also, fines with extra steps).
In every case, what you want from a “corporate death penalty” is better effected with actual penalties. A market-cap sized fine is more specific and more actionable than a “corporate death penalty,” which is why I suspect the latter is in circulation.
And sometimes these are bad and need to be dissolved.
Take everyone's favorite whipping boy, Facebook/Meta, as the example corporation. At every turn, they have shown that they have prioritized greed vs community good. Any good they provide is only to further their pursuit of wanting more. Because they are so large, any upstart competitor with a total opposite ethos that might come about gets annihilated by the behemoth.
If legal action were to give Meta the corporate death sentence preventing the company from operating and its execs from pivoting to somewhere else, then and only then could the competitors actually have a chance. So just because there's a death sentence for a corp doesn't mean the "people" lose as well.
Just do the second bit. The problem with judicial dissolution is corporations are a legal fiction. What you do with the people and assets is far, far more important. Ignoring the legal fiction to focus on those is my point. Take their stuff (fines). Force them to restructure (break-up). Limit their scope (corporate criminal penalties). Restrict their executives. “Corporate death penalty” is exactly non-specific enough to avoid specifying those prescriptions.
i don't think it's nearly as non-specific as you think. if you ask people what a corp death penalty would be, my assumption would be that people would think of it as the corporation no longer existing. if you're saying that corps would just spin off assets as a new name, new corp charter, same people, same processes, then yes, that would be a valid concern. but we can at least state that once, and all agree upon it rather than continuing to repeat it like we're unable to understand the concept.
I mean, look at this thread. I’m not saying the impulse is wrong. But “corporate death penalty” seems to be a good way to take a discussion which could lead to an outcome into one that won’t. That’s fine! People vent! But we shouldn’t confuse venting with deliberating.
I agree that there's an element of pedantry there, so if (as the GP suggested), someone is just venting and doesn't care about a specific outcome, saying "give them the corporate death penalty" is fine. But the downside is that if someone reads that, and looks up legal corporate dissolution, they might get the wrong idea that this sort of remedy will actually fix the problem. Or they might not even do any research, and just decide to start throwing around this term themselves, without really understanding what it means or what it does (and doesn't) accomplish.
But I also agree that listing out other specific remedies (market-cap-sized fine, jailing executives, whatever) is long-winded and annoying, and maybe not really useful or relevant unless the discussion is actually about what specific remedies might be effective.
(1) Dissolution as a viable entity in the US
(2) All assets sold paid out to wronged parties before debt servicing or shareholders
(3) All officers barred from holding political, non-profit, or corporate office at any level in the US states or territories, as well as removing the veil of corporate liability from officers. All technology and security employees have liens put in place to pay affected parties as well.
When we mean death sentence, we mean it.
If the fines are < the advantage to scoff the law, such a fine just puts a price tag that can be used in a cost-benefit calc for the company.
A strawman: Maybe proportion of ownership times current assets and all future income. Whatever fraction of their financial being is proportional to their share of the corporation is "dead".
If you have X% ownership share, you are fined X% of all your current assets and X% of all future income.
A message needs to be sent that it's not okay to invest in a company that is doing harm and then walk away from it. You're ethically and morally liable, the law should reflect that.