I read today (ThinkProgress link here, with link to the DOJ press release included therein) that Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence involved in the investigation of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. As part of the plea, Halliburton has agreed to pay the maximum fine of $200,000 (a pittance, really)… and serve three years of probation.
How exactly does a corporation go about the latter? I imagine the CEO isn’t required to show up at a probation officer’s office once a week and take a drug test or else the stockholders get rounded up and thrown in county. What does a sentence of probation entail for a corporate entity?
My guess is that it will likely temporaily disbar them from pursuing new business with the U.S. Government during the probation period as a penalty for what they did, or at the very least, it may limit the types of contracts or types of business they participate in. That said, they will probably be allowed to fulfill any existing contracts in place that were not subject to whatever the evidence was at issue.