[Whinner]

"Alleges"? That's not the title of the article. They were caught and agreed to pay a fine. Although they were able to not admit any wrongdoing.

[dylan604]

If there's no admission of guilt, there's always plausible deniability. That's why that part of these agreements are so important to those allegedly doing something. People settle out of court all of the time when they realize that the settlement paid out will be much cheaper than paying attorneys to fight and possibly win a court case. It also gets it out of the news cycle much faster as a one time story vs possible weeks to months of trials. "Look, we're not saying we did anything wrong here, but after crunching the numbers, it'll be cheaper for us to settle than to fight to prove we did nothing wrong" sounds like good business. Only an evangelist would sacrifice money to prove a point.

Not defending Booz Brothers at all, but alleging is all that happened

[saalweachter]

I wonder how a settlement affects internal accountability.

If this went to trial and it were proven that the company did XYZ, or even individuals in the company did X, Y, Z, presumably the company would in turn fire/discipline the employees (nominally) responsible for doing X, Y and Z.

Now, someone at the company probably knows if someone did X, Y, Z, even if there was no admission of wrongdoing. Do these employees still get disciplined, or does this mean the company doesn't acknowledge it happened internally (if it did), or do the employees get bonuses if doing XYZ netted more money than the settlement cost?