Do the janitors and admin staff hold shares? Ie do they benefit from the companies profits and do they have power over the board and executive teams?
If not the shareholders, someone in control of the company should be held accountable to avoid a "company in trouble? oh well, just shut it down, debt go poof, start again elsewhere, pocket the profits" situation or a situation where the company does something like damaging the environment. Too often do companies also get gutted to avoid paying out in lawsuits. There should always be people to go after. Probably it should be the board and executive team, rather than "I bought a single share" people. Ideally someone with skin in the game (so either being a shareholder, or maybe high salaries are sufficient too).
Shareholders already do get a penalty. The company gets fined which impacts future profitability and the stock price, thereby impacting shareholders.
Also, most often the shareholders of large companies have no knowledge of illegal behaviour because the responsible stakeholders/executives inside the org are hiding that information. Enron is an example.
What we need is more executive accountability. For example jail sentences to the HSBC execs that knowingly facilitated money laundering for the Sinaloa Cartel. Instead what we got was a mere fine which mostly impacted the shareholders.
Right now, as a share holder I don't really care about what the company does, only that the stonks go up.
There is no financial motivation for me to care. Sure, stonks can go to zero, but I still don't care. I have a very diversified portfolio (5k positions) because stonks go to zero all the time, even if companies don't do anything illegal.
If I were liable, I would have to care, because one position could bring down your whole portfolio. I would only invest in companies with a lot of oversight, etc.
I don't think a system in which the government is in charge of the oversight can work; there are just too many companies. I think every party financially invested in the company must be intrinsically motivated to perform a high degree of oversight.
I'm averse to making a big change like stripping limited liability when there's easier and less complicated first steps: much larger fine size and executive accountability.
If not the shareholders, someone in control of the company should be held accountable to avoid a "company in trouble? oh well, just shut it down, debt go poof, start again elsewhere, pocket the profits" situation or a situation where the company does something like damaging the environment. Too often do companies also get gutted to avoid paying out in lawsuits. There should always be people to go after. Probably it should be the board and executive team, rather than "I bought a single share" people. Ideally someone with skin in the game (so either being a shareholder, or maybe high salaries are sufficient too).