And big business loves it!
That’s what seems to be happening as the Justice Department under George Bush is now offering businesses “deferred prosecution agreements” rather than taking them to court when they’re found to be up to no good.
According to the New York Times, chemicals firm Monsanto escaped with a measly $1m fine when it was caught bribing officials in Indonesia. Apparently more than 50 companies have escaped prosecution this way in the past three years.
You can see why Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and co don’t want any more Enrons on their (mercifully expiring) watch.
Enron imploded a few years ago when it was found to have built a multi-billion dollar business largely on fiction, hitting a lot of Bush’s Texas cronies hard in the pocket. For all I know George and Dick had a few shares too, certainly Enron’s jailed boss Kenneth Lay was a buddy of theirs.
The scandal also brought down auditor Arthur Andersen, then one of the world’s ‘big five’ accountancy firms, in a matter of days, which was a touch harsh.
But what the Justice Department is doing now is running nothing more than a rather cuddly protection racket - pay up (modestly) and we’ll say no more about it.
This is a throwback to the good old pre-Teddy Roosevelt days a century ago when companies could do almost exactly as they wished.
Goodness knows what Mr Blatherskite’s hero, jailed former Hollinger newspaper boss Conrad Black, makes of it all. All he did was invent a few lucrative non-compete agreements and slip them past the noses of his dozy board of directors.
This fine and learned man is now sewing mailbags in Miami (or wherever) while the bigger fish swim happily on.