Well the traditional options for dealing with a criminal corporation are disbanding the corporation, nationalizing it, or fining it.
Fines don't work as well as would be desired, as sometimes it can still be profitable, except for crazy large fines which are basically equivalent to forcibly disbanding the company.
In any case, all three of these tend to hurt the wrong people. They tend to either hurt the shareholders who did nothing wrong (and despite economic theory, have only limited ability to know what really happens inside the company or influence it), or hurts the regular old employees, many of whom will get laid off if massive fines occur, or if the business is forced to closed, and sells off its business units to competitors.
The people with the ability to prevent corporate crimes are most often upper management or the executives. Given how these people are generally compensated, and the demands of the shareholders for maximum profits, most of the incentives don't tilt in favor of them making waves to prevent any corporate crimes they notice are in progress.
In my opinion the correct solution is to recognize that being an executive or upper management in a corporation is a position of public trust, and thus a privilege not a right. Thus when a company commits a significant crime, the upper manager/executives responsible for it should be forced out by the government.
Specifically the courts should have the power to force out a specific executive, upper manager, or board member (as applicable) if:
1. the person was in a position where they knew about the crime (and thus implicit) or ought to have known about the crime (and thus are too incompetent to hold a position of public trust or are practicing willful ignorance) and
2. either had the authority to prevent the crime, or failed to bring the matter to their boss (or the executive with the authority to take actions to prevent the crime, etc).
Furthermore, when this happens the court should have the authority to alter the executives employment contract to nullify any "golden parachute" compensation packages or structures that would make getting forcibly kicked out profitable for the individual in question.
Basically this means that it is in executives and upper management's personal interest to prevent the company from committing corporate crime, since getting forced out would otherwise be possible.
Obviously this should only apply to significant crimes, or repetitive small crimes that the company does not address. It would be absurd to try to apply this to a minor OSHA violation. But on the other hand if the company is constantly being hit with these, and is not making commercially reasonable attempts to fix the underlying systemic problems, then this should be applicable.
And obviously this should become a regular part of corporate criminal settlements, as long as that the named individual be provided an opportunity to demonstrate that they were doing everything they were authorized to attempt to prevent the crime, or to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy to prevent them from knowing about the crime in question which they would otherwise be expected to have known about, etc.
Note: In practice for condition 1, the government would normally be expected to show that the person ought to have known, given their position and job responsibilities, but the actual knowledge condition is there in case the government finds correspondence where the individual describes the crime, and dismisses it, such as where they decide the fines are just "the cost of doing business".
Fines don't work as well as would be desired, as sometimes it can still be profitable, except for crazy large fines which are basically equivalent to forcibly disbanding the company.
In any case, all three of these tend to hurt the wrong people. They tend to either hurt the shareholders who did nothing wrong (and despite economic theory, have only limited ability to know what really happens inside the company or influence it), or hurts the regular old employees, many of whom will get laid off if massive fines occur, or if the business is forced to closed, and sells off its business units to competitors.
The people with the ability to prevent corporate crimes are most often upper management or the executives. Given how these people are generally compensated, and the demands of the shareholders for maximum profits, most of the incentives don't tilt in favor of them making waves to prevent any corporate crimes they notice are in progress.
In my opinion the correct solution is to recognize that being an executive or upper management in a corporation is a position of public trust, and thus a privilege not a right. Thus when a company commits a significant crime, the upper manager/executives responsible for it should be forced out by the government.
Specifically the courts should have the power to force out a specific executive, upper manager, or board member (as applicable) if: 1. the person was in a position where they knew about the crime (and thus implicit) or ought to have known about the crime (and thus are too incompetent to hold a position of public trust or are practicing willful ignorance) and 2. either had the authority to prevent the crime, or failed to bring the matter to their boss (or the executive with the authority to take actions to prevent the crime, etc).
Furthermore, when this happens the court should have the authority to alter the executives employment contract to nullify any "golden parachute" compensation packages or structures that would make getting forcibly kicked out profitable for the individual in question.
Basically this means that it is in executives and upper management's personal interest to prevent the company from committing corporate crime, since getting forced out would otherwise be possible.
Obviously this should only apply to significant crimes, or repetitive small crimes that the company does not address. It would be absurd to try to apply this to a minor OSHA violation. But on the other hand if the company is constantly being hit with these, and is not making commercially reasonable attempts to fix the underlying systemic problems, then this should be applicable.
And obviously this should become a regular part of corporate criminal settlements, as long as that the named individual be provided an opportunity to demonstrate that they were doing everything they were authorized to attempt to prevent the crime, or to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy to prevent them from knowing about the crime in question which they would otherwise be expected to have known about, etc.
Note: In practice for condition 1, the government would normally be expected to show that the person ought to have known, given their position and job responsibilities, but the actual knowledge condition is there in case the government finds correspondence where the individual describes the crime, and dismisses it, such as where they decide the fines are just "the cost of doing business".