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You must have missed two words in your comment AtomikB. I'll fill them in for you.
At worst, it endangers the profitability of a corporation that is ACCUSED OF breaking the law.
You must have missed two words in your comment AtomikB. I'll fill them in for you.
At worst, it endangers the profitability of a corporation that is ACCUSED OF breaking the law.
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Atomik, keep in mind that profitability is what causes the US economy to be as strong as it is. Without profitability, there can be no investment into new business, market, or growth. That would stall the economy and damage us all. These oversights that were cut back increased the amount of paperwork even for foreign based companies wishing to do business in the US. The amount of foreign investment in the US economy has dropped measurably since these oversights were put in place, with little to no added benefit for consumers.
Let's focus our attention on enforcing laws that are already in place and fully capable punishing those who need it.
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\"Since the executives of a corporation can't be held accountable for that corporation's actions\"
Often they can. I kinda dozed through the \"piercing the corporate veil\" week in law school, but executives can be held accountable in some situations.
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Agreed Eyebrows, the corporate veil can be peirced, and I believe it was in Enron and Tyco...though CEO's and other corporate royalty is adept at hiding money, offshore accounts, and other shelters...Why do you think all the Enron execs had big houses in Florida?
All in all, I think the best solution would be to enforce the laws we already have, like kcskater mentioned, and to have some vigilante justice served up for people like Dennis Kozlowski, and the late Kenneth Lay.
Many (most?) corporations have provisions in their governing documents (certificate of incorporation, bylaws, etc) requiring the corporation to advance the legal fees of officers and directors who are being sued or investigated for matters relating to their service to the company. They also have contractual obligations to officers and directors to do likewise. The government's prior policy of penalizing companies that fulfilled these obligations put the companies between a rock and a hard place--the sued officers would sue the company to enforce their right to legal fee advancement, even if the company didn't \"want\" to pay (or was being strong-armed by the government into not paying). This was an untenable situation that may be cured by these reforms.
AtomikB's comment that corporations don't or shouldn't have A/C privilege is just silly, and contrary to established law.
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AtomikB - meet SOX: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act. Good, now that you know each other, you can stop with the outdated-by-four-year belief that executives of corporations can't be held accountable.
Corporations aren't people, and they don't deserve attorney-client privilege. Since the executives of a corporation can't be held accountable for that corporation's actions, waiving attorney-client privilege for a corporate entity endangers the right of no one. At worst, it endangers the profitability of a corporation that is breaking the law, and that doesn't sound half bad to me.