I don't understand your comment. If you mean a Platonic Free Market, maybe. In the real world, the CEOs weren't penalized for their wealth-destroying choices, and the boards weren't penalized. Sure, they lost their jobs, but perhaps they never should have had those jobs to begin with. They got to keep the money that they didn't earn. And that market is about as close to a free market as you'll see in the real world.
The investors lost money. They put their trust in bad (or simply imperfect or misguided) CEOs and careless boards. In the future, perhaps they will be more careful in their selection of managers. If not, they will continue to lose money. That's part of the market process.
The CEOs got to keep their money because the investors made poor choices; the investors could have negotiated a clawback in the compensation packages, for example. But in some sense, you might even say that the CEOs gave the investors exactly what they wanted. If the investors had wanted a more conservative corporate strategy, they could have always pulled their money out and invested in Berkshire Hathaway, or they could have uprooted management. Management set out on a strategy that didn't turn out well, but they weren't hiding anything from their investors.
It gets a little blurry at high levels, but remember that at the end of the day, the CEO is just an employee. The owners are ultimately responsible for the company.
