In the grand theater of American justice, the scales are supposed to be blind, weighing guilt and innocence with impartial precision. But what happens when the accused is not an individual, but a multi-billion-dollar corporation with the power to sway economies and the resources to bend the law to its will? As satirist and social critic John Oliver meticulously exposed in a recent episode of “Last Week Tonight,” the answer is a grim and unsettling one. A shadow system of justice, operating through arcane legal instruments known as Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) and Non-Prosecution Agreements (NPAs), has allowed some of the most powerful and reckless corporations to sidestep accountability for crimes that have cost hundreds of lives, destabilized financial markets, and betrayed public trust on a staggering scale.

This is not a story of minor infractions or regulatory oversights. This is a story about corporate malfeasance at its most lethal and cynical, and a legal system that has, time and again, chosen to slap the wrist that signs the checks, rather than bring down the hammer of justice. The very concept of a DPA was born from a place of compassion—a mechanism designed to give first-time, non-violent juvenile offenders a second chance, a path to rehabilitation without the lifelong stain of a criminal record. It was a tool of mercy. Yet, in the hands of federal prosecutors dealing with corporate behemoths, this tool of mercy has been twisted into a shield for the powerful, a get-out-of-jail-free card for the boardroom.

The turning point, as Oliver highlights, can be traced back to the spectacular collapse of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm for the disgraced energy giant Enron. When Arthur Andersen was prosecuted and ultimately dissolved, the fallout was immense, sending shockwaves through the economy and costing tens of thousands of jobs. The message prosecutors took from this was not that corporate crime must be punished, but that punishing it too harshly could have catastrophic consequences. A fear of being “too effective” took root, and from that fear, the modern corporate DPA flourished. It became the go-to solution for prosecutors who wanted to appear tough on corporate crime without actually risking the economic disruption of a full-blown conviction.

The result is a perverse paradox: the bigger and more integral a company is to the economy, the less likely it is to face real consequences for its crimes. The principle of “too big to fail” has morphed into “too big to jail.” And the case studies are as infuriating as they are heartbreaking.

Consider General Motors. The automotive giant knowingly sold cars with faulty ignition switches, a defect that could cause the engine to shut off while driving, disabling power steering, power brakes, and, most critically, the airbags. For years, GM knew about the problem. They knew people were dying. The final toll was at least 124 deaths and 273 injuries. This was not an accident; it was a calculated business decision where the cost of a recall was weighed against the cost of human lives, and the lives were deemed cheaper. The response from the Department of Justice? A Deferred Prosecution Agreement. GM paid a $900 million fine—a fraction of its annual profits—and not a single executive faced criminal charges. The message was clear: if you are powerful enough, you can write a check to make the deaths you caused go away.

The story of HSBC is perhaps even more chilling, demonstrating how this leniency extends to actions that threaten global security. The global banking giant was caught laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels, effectively greasing the wheels of a violent and murderous enterprise. Furthermore, they were found to have willfully violated sanctions by doing business with countries like Iran and Sudan. Internal documents and a brave whistleblower, Everett Stern, proved that top executives were not just aware of these activities; they were complicit. The evidence was overwhelming. The outcome? A DPA. The bank paid a fine of nearly $2 billion, a sum that, while sounding impressive, was described by analysts as a manageable “cost of doing business.” No one went to jail. The month after their DPA expired, HSBC was caught rigging currency rates and was offered yet another DPA. The system didn’t just fail to deter; it enabled a pattern of criminal behavior.

But no case illustrates the moral bankruptcy of this system more starkly than that of Boeing. The aerospace titan, a symbol of American ingenuity, was responsible for two crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft within five months, killing a total of 346 people. The crashes were not a freak accident. They were the direct result of a new flight control system that Boeing had deliberately concealed from pilots and regulators in a bid to rush the plane to market and cut training costs. They lied, they covered up, and 346 men, women, and children paid with their lives. A federal judge would later call it the “deadliest corporate crime in US history.”

The response should have been a landmark prosecution, a moment of reckoning. Instead, the Trump administration’s DOJ quietly offered Boeing a DPA just days before the statute of limitations expired. The agreement included a fine, but once again, shielded the company and its executives from a criminal conviction. Then, as Boeing was nearing the end of its probationary period, a door plug blew off a brand-new 737 MAX mid-flight, an incident that could have easily led to another mass-casualty event. The company had clearly not learned its lesson. The DOJ had the right to tear up the DPA and prosecute. It chose not to.

This is the reality of corporate justice in America today. It is a system where fines are treated as business expenses, where promises of reform are empty gestures, and where the lives of ordinary people are consistently devalued in the face of corporate power. As John Oliver argues, the solution is not to abandon the prosecution of corporate crime but to reclaim it. Fines must be genuinely punitive, representing a real threat to a company’s bottom line. Executives who oversee or condone criminal activity must face the real prospect of prison time. And the backroom deals of DPAs and NPAs must be brought into the light of the official legal system, creating a public record of misconduct that cannot be easily erased.

Until then, the message sent by our justice system remains dangerously clear: if you are an individual who commits a crime, you will be held accountable. But if you are a corporation that commits a crime, no matter how deadly, you can simply buy your way out. It’s a cynical bargain that corrodes the very foundation of the rule of law, leaving a trail of victims in its wake and ensuring that the next corporate crime is not a matter of if, but when.