No, those kinds of one-off events don't cause an otherwise profitable company to lay off people.
Of course there are other likely causes of layoffs, like a downturn in industry forecast for particular types of games, their next product didn't test well (or can't charge what they wanted), etc.
This is not a reaction to an FTC case.
Although I mean if you're the executive overseeing the devision where users got overcharged perhaps your bonus did deserve to be ax'd.
For senior management? Usually not.
If you hit it out of the park, the Board rewards you at its discretion. It isn’t until a company is mature enough that even senior managers don’t meaningfully affect the whole that performance targets are worth drafting. (Executives on performance targets early are a red flag.)
> if you were the cause of the suit, then you definitely shouldn't be getting anything
Sunk cost. Question is going-forward risk and return potential.
Basically the only way people evaluate you is pn past performance. If you made a bad judgement call resulting in these sorts of penalties, you're likely out.
"For senior management?"
For executives.
If you’re likely to make them again and/or don’t bring enough counterbalancing value to the table. If it came out of thin air it’s performative to punish. There’s a good Lee Iacocca quote about this somewhere.
> For executives
Senior management and executives are the same thing in a general context. (Another is upper management.)
Nothing comes out of thin air, unless you're saying the fines are bull shit.
"Senior management and executives are the same thing in a general context."
Depends on how big the company is. At my company senior management is at least a level below the executive level.
I’m saying not everything can be anticipated, and everything is in balance. A Board that fires everyone proximate to a fine will seal its own fate.
> At my company senior management is at least a level below the executive level
That’s middle management rebranded. It’s fine! I’ve done this! But the same way someone with a director title isn’t a director of the company, someone who reports to anyone other than the CEO is not senior management.
Edit: to be clear, it's the largest fine the FTC has ever imposed, it is a historically large amount of $$$