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If it's the death penalty then surely the shareholders would get nothing. Otherwise it's no punishment at all, and the shareholders could just form a new company with the cash to carry on business.

The current attitude is the criminal convictions translate into fines. If the fine's big enough to bankrupt the company then that's the death penalty.

Except they never are big enough to deter the behaviour, let alone bankrupt the company. Microsoft loses its court case and but the fine is small enough they could budget to lose a court case every few years and still be more profitable than god...