In an oped for Wired, Legal Director Ron Fein calls for the judicial dissolution of Equifax, due to the company’s failure to protect the private data of over 143 million people.

Equifax’s failure calls for the corporate death penalty, through a rare but vital procedure called judicial dissolution.

Under the law of Georgia, where Equifax is incorporated, the state attorney general may file a lawsuit in state court to dissolve a corporation if the corporation “has continued to exceed or abuse the authority conferred upon it by law.” (All 50 states have similar provisions.) State attorneys general don’t invoke these corporate death penalty statutes often, especially not against large, well-known corporations. But Equifax could not have obtained its unusually important position in our economy without the privileges of a corporate charter conferred by law, and it has forfeited its claim to those privileges.

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Dissolving Equifax would not require putting innocent people out of work or demolishing its office buildings. Working with a court-appointed receiver, the Georgia attorney general could develop a plan to deconstruct Equifax’s current corporate structure. It could continue to operate and pay its staff and vendors while dissolution is pending in court, and legitimate business lines could operate successfully afterwards under new ownership.

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