[...]the FTC action I'm afraid will show that they 'are' protected by the corporation ..thus the corporation as a whole was to blame and they can walk. The whole purpose of a corp for your biz. Hope I am incorrect but how many judgments have you seen with corps/banks in the USA in the last few years where anyone involved went to jail? [...]
Well I would argue there's a whole other purpose for incorporating a business, but OK... Here in the Netherlands at least the last couple of years the tendency/standard has been to put the executives on personal liability and disregarding any incorporation the second even a whim of foul play is suspected (let alone the stench coming from this cesspool)... Just yesterday a huge settlement (almost 800M. US$) was announced:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vimpelcom-pay-795-million-resolve-092215628.html and a principal player has been placed under "house arrest" pending the further investigation and probable criminal charges:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26713383 [...] at this point in time ...with the info at hand....they got away with it all and their hidden btc stashes....I"ve no doubt (it is who they are) ;( Again would like to be convinced otherwise
You're being over-pessimistic in my view; for starters the settlement (can we say "punishment") can be considered "severe" when we take the legal revenue of BFL into account, second the settlement is already a prelude for this, explicitly stating: "Against Drake, the judgment is $135,878, which will be suspended once she surrenders the cash value of all Bitcoins she obtained using company machines" (and I personally am counting - based on "past actions" that
not "all Bitcoins"...), so further more the road is still (way) open for further, both criminal and fiscal, action against both corp. as well as principals...
The fat lady (IMHO) has
not sung jet, but boy does she move
slooooow...
EDIT: not to mention that this settlement does not exclude (and can therefore be used in) the class-action-lawsuit still pending... I just remembered...