No, serious executives cannot do that. If an executive acknowledges a business practice violates law, the action item is not 'do it anyway'. There is no corporate level civil disobedience. This is not correct and not reflective of the way this actually goes in real life corporate America.

There is. You can treat fines as just another cost of doing business if your returns will be far greater.

No. It is not standard to build an illegal enterprise and then treat the fines as a cost of doing business.

It is. If every business followed every law perfectly as a standard practice it would be very difficult for many businesses to survive. Law has to be fudged when appropriate.

Look, the most aggressive folks have reasoned positions they feel comfortable taking to judges and counterparties. If your position is "I'm illegal and I don't care, see if you can fashion a remedy that makes me regret it", judges and counterparties will oblige.

If you aren’t caught doing illegal things you will never see a judge.