What you are claiming is mealy a common mythology, foisted on us by the likes of "Occupy Wall street" and the politicians who use class envy as a wedge issue to get votes. It is not reality true.
It might be a mythology. That does not necessarily mean there is no truth behind it.
I point to the many recent examples where large corporations where indeed cited for breaking laws, fined for it and where individuals involved where convicted.
The analogy I would use, is the lawyers and courts found and crushed a roach that got a bit too careless and gorged themself, so was laying on the kitchen counter and got accidentally discovered.
The fact that a few roaches have been killed, does not necessarily mean that the walls and attic aren't infested with more.
There are also bound to be more careless roaches or injured roaches than others.
They don't "get away" with illegal stuff just because they have an army of lawyers at their disposal.
They don't often break the law and don't get away with it when they do. It's bad business...
How would it be bad for business?
These roaches cannot easily be detected. They are hiding in the wall.
You just think they are savvy businessmen, or perhaps not so savvy.
Probably most of them cheat a little bit, and only a few of them cheat a whole lot.
Some people can make very slight transgressions from the law over a very long period of time quite covertly and not get caught, especially if they have the resources and persuasiveness to hide their transgressions.
They might earn $1 billion legitimately and steal $50 million by neglecting to pay some taxes, for example, by exploiting the tax laws of different countries and creative accounting.
Citation, please?
Most corporations are quite concerned about not breaking the law and go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of it.
Correct. Corporations are quite concerned about the appearance of having broken the law, and they wish to avoid liability that could lower profits, but have you already forgotten about how vehicle manufacturers have been concealing hazards from NHTSA and hiding product defects, deeming the risk of lawsuit as cost of doing business? (More expensive to recall than the perceived loss from lawsuits). Companies will even construct policy manuals and other paper trail in order to show 'by the book' policies respecting the law. But do you have a cite showing most larger corporations concerned about adhering to the law, even laws that lose them big $$$, for their own sake, And not solely as a form of risk management?