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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I haven’t checked their numbers for accuracy, but the other response about Purdue’s profits is spot on.
In addition, there are lots of cases where a business is fined for illegal activity but it’s hard to gauge the exact amount. For example, Wells Fargo creating fraudulent accounts. In some of those cases, fines are laughably low.
If we really want to deter illegal activity from companies, fines should be expressed in percentages of their annual revenue. Any costs the government spends successfully litigating fines should be added on.
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