Why are corporate fines for shady or illegal business practices so often less than the amount they made by doing those illegal practices? At that point, don’t the fines just become a cost of doing business?
Specifically thinking about Perdue Pharma. PBS article says they made $35billion pushing opioids, but the current court case is only seeking $6billion on fines. Ignoring the Sackler’s immunity request, this is still a net win.
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If a politician doesn’t punish a company that everyone knows did a bad thing they won’t get elected again because everyone will be mad that they let the bad guy get away.
But if a politician fines a big company so much that it dies then they will not be trusted by the big companies anymore and those big companies will stop giving them the money they need to get elected again.
So the only way for a politician to stay in power is to hand out a small fine that makes it look like they are punishing the bad guys but does not make the big companies mad.
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