This has nothing to do with subsidies or a public legal system. Externalization of costs is a fundamental issue and is as old as time. Anyone who thinks honor outcompetes greed in humans has never lived in the real world.

Society had to suffer tens of thousands of early deaths and spend hundreds of millions on environmental, medical and epidemiological research to establish the links between PFAS, parkinson's disease and certain cancers, after a few decades. Multiple Big Chem CEO's knew this all along from their own research, yet choose to keep it quiet. Yet, even today when this is public information, the reputation of these companies doesn't suffer the slightest. And even if it would, a simple M&A or rebrand will fix it (e.g. Monsanto)