Indeed, and it's a fine line between "the cost of doing business" and ruining a large company over the decisions by a few people. Would probably have been better to go after the people at the top than fining the company..
They would deserve credit if they acted against their best interests by making it known what was going on at the time, but they knew they were benefiting from lower than otherwise salaries due to the collusion.
This is what amazes me. Given this exact thing has happened in the past and resulted in public humiliation of the companies involved, how did they not notice this? Why didn’t they check for it?
So they knew they had to apologize for what they were about to do and did it anyway? Not sure what to think other than to avoid such companies altogether.
Victim blaming is generally reprehensible. Further, I imagine that as a nascent business the notion that competitors would be so unethical didn't seem to be a top priority.
Is it obvious now that they should have caught it? Yeah, thanks to the brilliance of hindsight of course it is. Does that justify it? Hardly.
This type of reaction just reinforces bad behavior by the people leading these companies. They'll continue running a shady business and screwing people because they figure nobody will bother confronting them about it.
And if SDGE did not do an investigation, what consequences would they face from the shrieking hordes of twitter taking offense on other people's behalf?
By now it should be well known that most companies are spineless when facing bad publicity, even of the manufactured variety...
I'm not an expert in this area, but was interested in that story when it happened. Reading commentary from others in the industry suggested that they were, at best, naive in their handling of that contract. Yes charging them was a political act to save face, but they put themselves in that position through ignorance. Quite a different situation from a reporter and responsible disclosure in my opinion.
Oh noes, pissing off abusive regimes to make a few bucks more, I'd say they deserve all they get and should have been part of their business risk assessment.
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