Government officials like to appear before TV cameras sounding indignant and announcing what appear to be tough penalties against corporate lawbreakers. But the indignation is for the public, and the penalties are often tiny relative to corporate earnings. The penalties emerge from settlements, not trials. In those settlements, corporations do not concede they’ve done anything wrong, and they agree, at most, to vague or paltry statements of fact. That way, they avoid possible lawsuits from shareholders or other private litigants who have been harmed and would otherwise use a conviction against
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