Instead of fines the government should be granted an ownership percentage in companies that break that law (thus diluting ownership and directly impacting owners). That way the punishment impacts shareholders/owners, but in way that keeps corporate protections so that society can continue to function.
And for egregious behavior like Chevron in Ecuador, the government should cut up and sell the company in a million useless pieces completely destroying all shareholder value.
I wish someone would give me a chance to vote to repeal the personal death penalty and create the corporate death penalty.
The Chevron Ecuador story is a great example of how impossible discussions on corporate misconduct can get. Chevron has successfully argued in both the US and an international tribunal that the Ecuadorian judgment was procured through corruption and bribery. But oil companies are very unpopular, so many people who encounter the case assume that Chevron must have been in the wrong, and the lawyer who was disbarred and jailed for his role in that corruption must be right.