Theoretically you could sentence a corporation to community service. I.e., forcibly rewrite its charter into that of a social benefit corporation, where the social-benefit goals are “doing whatever the government says.” Sort of half-way between commandeering a resource and nationalizing a corporation.
Staff are at-will. The only thing a government really gets from that is the corporation’s assets, which it would rather have in cash than in i.e. durable equipment. Hence fines.
The problem lately, though, is that the government has been really conservative at metting out an appropriate amount of fines. Human beings are regularly deprived of decades of their lives for silly stuff like possession - if a corporation is forced to pay more than a quarter's profits everyone gets up in arms.
So I agree that a collection of liquid assets is more reasonable, but it the volume is an issue.
