These as fines are too small. It is just a cost of doing business. The fines should be devastating so getting 5-6 of such fines should be a death penalty for the company
The issue is the fines aren't a big deterrence as they're not that big. A lot of fines are less than the money the company made or saved with the illicit activity so it just becomes a line item cost more than an actual penalty.
Fines should be a deterrent and not just cost of business. It seems we have reached a point where large companies can do shady stuff, make lots of money, pay a fraction of that as fine and nothing else happens. So they will keep doing it.
Only in theory. In reality, I can't think of any company over the past decade that has seen a reduction in revenues after being fined by some regulator. Can you find even one example of a business actually declining because of some fines?
Not to mention that most companies seem to get off with nothing more than a slap-on-the-wrist type fine, if at all. It seems as if it's just become a cost of doing business.
This article makes a good point comparing the relatively small magnitude of fines paid to revenue earned. It follows that perhaps fines are not deterring.
Perhaps a stronger deterrent would be injunction-based: companies found to be in violation of regulations and laws might be enjoined completely from operating in a commercial space. "One strike and you're out."
Yes, fines might be effective if they were bigger.
Many of the people I found while searching got fines that probably equated to something like a year's salary. Fine these companies an amount comparable to a year's revenue and I bet things would change in a hurry.
Companies seem to push the boundaries of the law deliberately.
Are these types of fines are taken straight out of any "profits" by the accountants so I'm not sure if they don't just effectively "expense" the cost of fines and consequently only pay 60-80% of them?
It does seem high but then it depends on if they are consistently breaking the law. I'm sure these bodies came to a conclusion based on some sort of evidence to show damage to other businesses and how would you deter companies in a different way from breaking the law?
I wish, the bigger the company, the smaller the fines (proportionally) tend to be. Like slapping Google on the wrist with a $125m fine. "oh no, an amount we can make back in about an hour, whatever shall we do!"
To add to that, fines can and do bankrupt small businesses. I cannot remember the last time a big company went bankrupt by fines. Breaking the law poses existential threat to small businesses, not large enterprises.
Rarely they change behavior of companies, because fines are still peanuts compared to profit they gain by this.. so not really getting your comment.. they are relatively so small we cannot even call them fines.
I'm in two minds with these kinds of fines (maybe not super relevant for this specific fine).
1. Do these big megacorps just not care about rules, and they look at fines as a cost of doing business while the steam roll through industries.
2. Have lawmakers completely failed for the past decades to effectively referee tech, and so instead of having sane regulation and clear rules everything has to get decided in courts with fines.
Probably both are true, and the real losers are small businesses trying to get started.
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