If breaking the law is more profitable than following it, what exactly is the penalty preventing?
I’ve been seeing @Jimmy Wrigg on social media, going into Walmart, Kroger, and other stores to challenge what he describes as unethical practices. He checks product weights against the labels and questions whether shoppers are actually getting what they pay for.
Watch Jimmy Wrigg’s video on Facebook
His videos got me thinking about a broader problem: What happens when companies can make more money breaking the rules than they stand to lose when they get caught?
The concerns extend beyond grocery labels to prescription practices. On August 28, 2026, the Justice Department announced a separate $50 million settlement with Walmart over allegations that its pharmacies illegally filled thousands of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances. The settlement did not establish liability and included requirements for stronger monitoring and reporting.
In a grocery-weight case, Walmart agreed to a settlement of just under $50 million over allegations that customers were overcharged for certain groceries sold by weight and bagged citrus. Walmart denied wrongdoing.
Those are separate cases, and settlements do not by themselves prove intentional misconduct. But they raise a larger question about deterrence: When does a financial penalty become little more than the cost of doing business?
My concern is the incentive. If a company profits from a violation, pays a penalty, and still comes out ahead, what makes it change? We should be asking whether the consequences are strong enough to prevent the next violation.
The lesson from SMU
Watching football this weekend brought SMU to mind. Fans who remember the Pony Express era know how powerful that program once was. In 1987, repeated NCAA violations led to the cancellation of SMU’s football season and restrictions on its 1988 schedule.
The NCAA’s so-called “death penalty” meant the program lost the ability to compete. That was a consequence it could not simply budget around.
College football and corporate regulation are different worlds. Still, the comparison raises a fair question: What would it take to make repeated corporate misconduct too costly to tolerate?
Make the consequences benefit the people affected
I would like to see a system in which proven, repeated violations trigger penalties tied to a company’s financial size, the harm it caused, and the benefit it gained from breaking the rules.
Consumer restitution and environmental cleanup should remain part of that response. I would add obligations that directly benefit workers and the communities where the company operates.
For example, Walmart reported approximately $19.4 billion in net income in 2025. Imagine a company of that size, after a finding of repeated, deliberate violations, being required to create and maintain 2,000 additional jobs paying $50,000 a year, with benefits, for two years as their punishment.
The salaries alone would total $100 million annually. Assuming another 35% for benefits and employer costs would be $135 million a year, or $270 million over two years.
I would also consider a $2 hourly raise for existing eligible employees during that period. At a company with Walmart’s workforce, that could mean billions of dollars annually, depending on eligibility and hours worked. The obligation would need to be calculated honestly and scaled accordingly.
Workers receiving those wages could support their families and spend money in their communities. The penalty would have a direct, visible benefit to the communities in which they cheated.
Keep the cost from falling back on workers
During the penalty period, the company should be prohibited from offsetting those obligations through layoffs, reduced hours, benefit cuts, or replacing employees with contractors.
If leadership needs to find savings, executive compensation, board compensation, and stock buybacks should face scrutiny. Employees should not have to finance the penalty for decisions made above them.
Enforcement would matter. Independent oversight would need to verify the new jobs, monitor payroll, and prevent a company from moving positions between subsidiaries to make its numbers look compliant.
For companies that repeatedly defy those orders, I would put an 18-month stock-exchange delisting penalty on the table. That is a proposal for debate, not an existing automatic consequence. It would need careful review because employees with retirement savings and other ordinary investors could also be hurt.
The goal should be to make the people directing the misconduct answer for it, while protecting the people who depend on the business.
Test whether stronger penalties change behavior
There are legitimate questions here. Who determines when a violation is deliberate? How do we distinguish repeated misconduct from an isolated mistake? Could forced hiring create jobs that disappear when the penalty ends? How do we prevent costs from being passed to consumers?
Those questions deserve answers. They should help us improve the proposal.
I would support testing this approach through a 15-year pilot, with public reporting and regular independent evaluations along the way. Measure repeat violations, restitution, job retention, wages, and consumer prices. Adjust it when the evidence shows a problem.
I don’t believe cutting jobs should be the default answer whenever a company needs to protect its bottom line. Nor should the people doing the work keep absorbing the consequences when leadership breaks the rules.
A company that repeatedly cheats consumers or damages the environment should face consequences large enough to change its decisions.
Actions have consequences. It’s time those consequences had teeth.
What penalty do you think would actually change corporate behavior?
