Why is it difficult to impose liability on corporate executives?

What will be an ideal response?

Very few corporate officials are held liable by law enforcement for the actions of their companies. This lack of liability is believed to occur because of the delegation of responsibility to lower tiers of management and reliance on unwritten orders, which frequently allows top-level management to protect itself from liability for the results of its policy decisions. Traditionally, imposing liability on executives has been difficult because the criminal law usually requires an unlawful act to be accompanied by an unlawful intent. In cases of violations of federal regulations, corporate executives often argue that they are not the ones directly responsible for filing the documents or conducting the studies. They certainly never explicitly ordered that such regulations be disregarded. In response to recent high-profile corporate scandals, Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission have created more stringent certification requirements for CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate officials.
Although corporate executives may be found guilty of committing a corporate crime, few are charged and even fewer are actually convicted. Even when they are convicted, harsh penalties are not likely to be imposed. Furthermore, even when executives do go to prison, because they are not seen as security risks they are often sent to prisons that some would argue are nicer than the motels many people can afford to stay in on vacations. A primary reason for the limited number of convictions is the diffusion of responsibility. It is often difficult to establish who was responsible for the criminal act. Another problem related to corporate structure is that everyone usually has a specific job, and putting all of the pieces of the crime together is difficult. Corporate executives also tend to have high-caliber counsel who specialize in defending white-collar criminals. These skilled attorneys, often paid for by the corporation or (when permitted by law) by an insurance carrier, usually get involved during the initial investigation of the case and perceive one of their key functions as keeping evidence out of the hands of the prosecutor. They often regard themselves as having lost the case if they do not prevent their client from being indicted or if they do not at least get the charge reduced to the lowest possible misdemeanor. Another alleged reason for the limited number of convictions of corporate executives is that they are generally persons with a great deal of knowledge, including knowledge of inefficiencies and improprieties on the part of the government officials who are regulating them. It is argued that regulators are unlikely to press for prosecution when their own ineptness may be revealed in the process.