The New York Times has the story Prosecutors, Shifting Strategy, Build New Wall Street Cases.

Criticized for letting Wall Street off the hook after the financial crisis, the Justice Department is building a new model for prosecuting big banks.

In a recent round of actions that shook the financial industry, the government pushed for guilty pleas, rather than just the usual fines and reforms. Prosecutors now aim to apply the approach broadly to financial fraud cases, according to officials involved in the investigations.

Lawyers for several big banks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they were already adjusting their defenses and urging banks to fire employees suspected of wrongdoing in the hope of appeasing authorities.

Is this a new corporate idea, firing employees who break the law in the process of carrying out their official duties?  In my 40 odd years in the corporate world, I always thought that such firing was already corporate policy.  That was probably only true of people at my low level.

Perhaps Elizabeth Warren was only one of the voices criticizing the Justice Department, but her voice brought a lot of attention to the issue. See Elizabeth Warren Embarrasses Hapless Bank Regulators At First Hearing.

If the Justice Department’s worry is that such prosecutions will put the companies out of business, they could also include nationalization of the company as part of the punishment.  This would put the government in charge of an orderly winding down of the failing company.  If the Justice Department has no qualms about hounding individuals until they commit suicide, how about just making corporate executives pee in their pants.