> In the US, an apology is considered an admission of responsibility and is often the starting point of legal action against the culprit
source? this is a popular theory among non-lawyers, but not, as far as I can tell, well-supported by the evidence. http://jaapl.org/content/early/2021/05/19/JAAPL.200107-20 has extensive citations including for their claim that "In theory, telling a patient about an error may make patients more likely to pursue litigation. In practice, however, bad outcomes alone are typically not reason enough for patients or their families to file malpractice claims."
Medicine may not fit the pattern (personally I'd want to know where I stand, even if the news is bad), but I took the OP to be saying "American firms prefer not to go on record saying they screwed up, since that would naturally be brought up in subsequent legal proceedings".
source? this is a popular theory among non-lawyers, but not, as far as I can tell, well-supported by the evidence. http://jaapl.org/content/early/2021/05/19/JAAPL.200107-20 has extensive citations including for their claim that "In theory, telling a patient about an error may make patients more likely to pursue litigation. In practice, however, bad outcomes alone are typically not reason enough for patients or their families to file malpractice claims."