I happened to catch a news segment, several days ago, on white collar criminals (in particular, the conviction of Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco). Several talking heads were debating whether or not “white collar” crimes are victimless crimes and whether or not “white collar” criminals deserve to be punished.

Speaking as a business owner, I can say that this is a very simple problem. If you own a business and want to plunder it, you are probably an idiot and possibly liable for any losses you cause clients to suffer, but it’s your business. You can do that. If you are appointed CEO of – or to any other position in – any company in which you hold less than a 100% stake, you cannot use it as your personal piggy bank.

Unforgiven loans that are not disclosed, paying for personal items with company funds, etc, when one heads a public company, are all theft. Whether or not these actions cause the ultimate collapse of the company, the actions themselves are no different from those of a bank teller who removes money from the safe after hours. Is 25 years too harsh a punishment for somebody who stole $96 million made $285 million in inflated stock sales (at the expense of all the other share holders)? I sure don’t think so.

Comments are open; feel free to chime in.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.