The analysis by Syracuse University finds that the government’s criminal prosecution of corporations has dropped 29 percent in the past decade -- particularly remarkable as the decline not only followed headline-grabbing scandals at financial, accounting and energy firms but also occurred even as the number of corporate crime cases referred to prosecutors has increased.

....................

In 1999, the Clinton administration’s deputy attorney general Eric Holder issued a memo telling federal prosecutors that when they contemplate whether to issue charges against corporations, they should consider “collateral consequences, including disproportionate harm to shareholders and employees not proven personally culpable.” That message was amplified by the Bush administration’s Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip, whose 2008 directive to federal prosecutors told them to "take into account the possible substantial consequences to a corporation's employees, investors, pensioners and customers.”

With Obama administration officials echoing the same themes -- and with critics calling the concept “too big to jail” -- prosecutions plummeted: Syracuse researchers found that there were almost 22 percent fewer corporate prosecutions in the five years after the Filip memo than in the five years before.