Donald Trump has done little during his four years in office to stem the power of big business. But career officials at regulatory agencies and career prosecutors at the Justice Department, have continued doing their jobs: Purdue Pharma Lp, Goldman Sachs and other big corporations fined billions dollars. Da Dirt Diggers Digest.
For all of his populist bluster, Donald Trump has done little during his four years in office to stem the power of big business. He criticizes corporations only when he feels personally slighted or when it fits into one of his many outlandish conspiracy theories.
Fortunately, career officials at regulatory agencies and career prosecutors at the Justice Department, as well as those at the state level, have continued doing their jobs. The following is a selection of significant cases resolved during 2020.
Opioid market abuses: The Justice Department announced an $8 billion global resolution of its criminal and civil investigations into abuses by Purdue Pharma LP. The company agreed to plead guilty to three felony counts and pay criminal fines and forfeitures of $5.5 billion and $2.8 billion in a civil settlement. Given that the company is going through bankruptcy, it is unclear how much of this will actually be paid.
Bogus bank accounts: As part of the ongoing prosecution of Wells Fargo for pressuring employees to meet unrealistic sales goal by creating bogus accounts without customer permission, the Justice Department announcedthat the bank would pay $3 billion to resolve criminal and civil charges. Wells was allowed to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid a guilty plea.
