like i said:

maybe the root-cause is […] the total lack of any consequences

but you used much more words ;-)

“publicly traded” does not imply that consequences would be impossible.

i see the opposite is true.

one could make that “public trade” also “very” public as in ownerships could only be changed together with a public note of who that new owner of that share is in person and only like not allow ownership changes more than twice a week per person, making investment more profitable than parasitic high performance trade. also the current lack of consequences could be improved by making the shareholders personally responsible for everything that the company does, including going to jail when the ceo left the country to not go there.

that could include making those responsible who owned that company at the time of its crime, making trust in the company way more important than that they can cause damage to society in macroscope just to profit in microscopical bits.

this way the shareholders would have a at least one trigger to actually want to look into who that bullshittalker is they want to let into such a position of “their property”

society should take care who they let do things with “their property” too.