List of CEOs going to prison for contempt in the last 30 years:
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While not for the particular charge of contempt of senate and not a complete list, these CEOs have been imprisoned in the past 20 years:
- Andrew Ferguson, Bight Abalone
- Matthew Perrin, Billabong
- Gavin Pollock, Shire of Ravensthorpe
- Daniel Tartak, Bingo Industries (skip bins) *
- Emmanuel Roussakis, Aussie Skips *
* These two were convicted together for price fixing
Being a CEO doesn’t put you above the law. It just buys you better lawyers.
As I said: not for contempt. Nobody who can afford a good lawyer will ever go to prison for contempt. Also: That is a depressing short list for 20 years. As if not more CEO deserved to go to prison for wage theft and other things.
I just pasted the names and companies from the first few Google hits. There were plenty more hits, but I wasn’t going to read them all.
I actually couldn’t find anyone who had ever been imprisoned for contempt of senate. The charge exists, and a prison term is possible, but I don’t know that it has ever actually happened. It comes over as an hollow threat.
I mean, establishing that there’s a problem with CEOs not going to gaol for contempt of Senate would first require establishing that CEOs are committing contempt of Senate, at the very least to a standard of “a reasonable concern exists”.
I feel like inflation has rather diminished the impact of the monetary side of a contempt finding - $5k just doesn’t have the same impact as six months in prison anymore. It’s like how you see the occasional old sign in lifts warning that smoking can be punished by a (presumably initially impactful) fine of up to $20…
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