And if the fines are being imposed on actions that it would be hard to predict ahead of time would result in a fine, that leaves them with the second option (use money to buy influence), which is probably the worst of all because it's stable.
Once you convince a company that paying whatever it takes to buy a government is the only way to avoid random multi-billion dollar fines, you've created a long-term structural problem, because it becomes the status quo and is hard to undo. And then the government can't even punish them when they're actually being bad.
Once you convince a company that paying whatever it takes to buy a government is the only way to avoid random multi-billion dollar fines, you've created a long-term structural problem, because it becomes the status quo and is hard to undo. And then the government can't even punish them when they're actually being bad.