system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are banks not fined for the equivalent value they made when breaking the law?

For example, recently, rigging foreign exchange markets, etc. Why are the banks not directly assessed for the *amount* of money they made in rigging these, then fined for that exact amount +extra? To me, doing this, taking away *all* of the banks profits made from illegal activity, on top of fining them an extra couple million dollars, would be the only way to actually *stop* this from happening.  CEOs should be in jail as well, but that just seems like straight up corruption in the way that white collar crime is never sufficiently punished anyway.
gpt
Banks generally have shareholders.  By the time the bank has been caught the shareholder's have likely already been paid special dividends for the money in question made from illegal practices.  The general structure of corporations of this size (with enough lawyers to back it up) prevents the shareholders from being directly liable for the actions of the corporations they hold stock in.  Therefore such a fine wouldn't necessarily punish those who ultimately benefit from such activity.

Exacting such a cost from the banks which are publicly held and generally, regardless of whatever illegal practices they engage in, important and essential parts of the economy as it is currently structured would likely lead to more economic chaos rather than less, ultimately punishing the people (the general public) that are supposed to be protected from the banks actions.