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From the article:

The PG&E corporation pleaded guilty to recklessly sparking the Camp Fire through criminal negligence and to the felony manslaughter of 84 people in the deadliest wildfire in California history.

Some burned to death in their cars trying to run for their lives. Even more never escaped their own homes.

Though the law treats corporations as people, PG&E couldn’t be sentenced to the 90 years in prison the judge said its crimes deserved.

PG&E instead paid the maximum fine of $10,000 for each manslaughter victim, an amount of money PG&E earns every 17 seconds from its vast state-licensed monopoly over the power supply to four out of every ten Californians.

Prosecutors managed to convict PG&E of 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter within two years of the killings

Also FTA:

The ease with which PG&E has obtained two safety certificates in the face of new wildfires is alarming to safety advocates, including the CPUC’s own Public Advocates Office.

“For the extensive benefits that a company gets from having a safety certificate, it should come with the accountability,” said Nat Skinner, the head of safety for the Public Advocates Office. “[The safety certificate] makes it harder to hold the utility accountable.”

Beyond access to the $21 billion insurance fund, the benefits PG&E receives for its safety certificate are twofold.

First, if PG&E’s power lines spark a fire while it has a certificate, the company is presumed to have acted “reasonably,” which means it is entitled to bill customers for the cost of wildfire damage unless a challenger proves the company acted unreasonably.

Second, even if a challenger is successful in proving the utility acted unreasonably, the certificate caps the amount of wildfire damage that can be taken out of shareholders’ profits.