(Bloomberg) -- China will jail forty-seven steel company officials for faking air pollution data, in a sign that Beijing’s crackdown on firms that are flouting environmental rules is intensifying.Most Read from BloombergApple to Rival Square by Turning iPhones Into Payment TerminalsCrypto Secrecy Makes DeFi a Financial Felon’s WonderlandStocks Drop in Roller-Coaster Ride for Wall Street: Markets WrapHow a Fox News Interview Threw the Antiwork Subreddit Into ChaosAmericans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad
  • Wildgrapes [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Literally unimaginable that executives in the west would be punished in anyway for this. They'd maybe mayyyybbeeee get a fine. But probably just get more government contracts after promising to definitely not do it again.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Two of the executives responsible for Volkswagen's systematic fraud with emission tests of 11 million diesel cars were charged - with fraud and market manipulation.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          One of them was for a while. Both of them are out of jail as of now.

          • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Martin Winterkorn was the one who did not see jail (yet anyway), brief excerpt:

            On 15 April 2019, he was also charged in Germany by regional prosecutors of the city of Braunschweig of fraud, of violating laws prohibiting unfair competition. In January 2020 it was reported that the German judge in the case stated that Winterkorn might be allowed to keep 12 million dollars in bonuses, and possibly walk free from the charges. Prosecutors in Stuttgart dropped a market manipulation investigation after deferring to the case in Braunschweig. In June 2021, it was reported that Winterkorn among other former top managers should pay to Volkswagen around €10 Mn in compensation.

            So...possibly a fine less than the bonus he got.

            Oliver Schmidt was the other:

            In January 2017 while attempting to return to Germany after a vacation, Schmidt was arrested in a men's room at a Florida airport, charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States in the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Had Schmidt been able to board a plane and return to Germany, the chances of him being prosecuted would have been slim as it is unlikely that Germany would have extradited one of its own citizens to stand trial in the United States. In December 2017, having earlier pleaded guilty, a Federal judge in Detroit sentenced him to seven years in prison and fined him $400,000. Schmidt was inmate number 09786-104 and was incarcerated at U.S. Federal prison FCI Milan in York Township, Michigan. His release date was set for 25 December 2022. In late September 2020, Schmidt was transferred to Germany where he was incarcerated at Hanover Correctional Center. In January 2021, he was released on parole after serving a bit more than half his sentence

            3 year and 1 month sentence

            I do note the Chinese cases seem to be about air pollution data itself being falsified, where here the charges are for things such as fraud. The Chinese execs jailed are all from just 4 steel mills

            • SoyViking [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Yeah, the German polluters got punished for fucking with the money, not for fucking with the environment.