Executing Corporations

[drplokta]

Theres a meme going round "I'll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one". But Texas "executes" hundreds or thousands of corporations per year, most famously Enron. Bankruptcy is the exact equivalent of execution for corporations -- it's the state exerting its power and causing the corporation to cease to exist. So I guess that corporations are people.

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Bankruptcy can be used to a company's advantage.

Carry out massively environmentally damaging operation. Grab the profits, pay massive dividend and bonus and sell anything useful to another company you own. Declare bankruptcy and escape paying for the environmental clean up afterwards.

It's quite a popular stunt.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Also: Phoenix companies -- do business, get suppliers used to you paying on 30 or 60 or 90 day terms ... declare bankruptcy, sell your assets to a shell company for a nominal fee, and resume doing business without actually being under any obligation to pay your suppliers. If your suppliers are interchangeable, this works like a dream.

Yes, I've been bitten by that one (during my freelance computer journalism days).

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Nasty. I've heard of several cases of that in the building industry.