I was just reading about a violation of the Canadian fisheries act that has a maximum penalty of $200k, and realized the absurdity of there ever being a maximum fine.
There should be no maximum fine on any corporate penalty given that we do not cap the size of corporations or their bank accounts.
It would be like having maximum jail terms of 25 years for immortal beings that can live to 10,000.
I’ve been saying it for years and years now, fines need to be proportionate to a person’s or company’s assets and earnings.
or a running net percentage. 1% of net income so long as the penalty applies. google tore down a forest without permits, how about 1% of net profits until the forest is restored
There is already a well defined legal remedy that is used against regular people that commit financial crimes.
Treble damages are a legal remedy where a court multiplies a plaintiff’s actual, proven compensatory damages by three.
This should be the bare minimum for corporations. Corporations are legal people but not actual people, they are soulless machines that seek profit, the only way to deter them from criminality is to make crime unprofitable. Anything less is inviting them to do crime and pay a fine because doing so generates a profit.
Agreed. I think they should be a percentage of that sort of thing. Ive heard wealthy people say “xyz isn’t illegal, you just have to pay a fine.” Like…huh? The uber wealthy aren’t a part of this planet, that’s just insane to say.