Fines are designed to disincentivize the cost of doing "illegal" business. It's not an insult, but comes across quite capitalistic to not consider the difference.
Fines are generally made small enough not to be overturned, so the agency doesn't have to waste money litigating it, while also typically being large enough to change future behavior. They're not really retributive so much a cold calculations meant to get companies to do what they're supposed to do.
No one expects them to actually pay the fines with the exact pile of cash they've made in revenue this year (which, of course, isn't actually a pile of cash).
You're missing the point, that the fines are nowhere large enough to be consequential. If the fines were anywhere close to large enough, the company would no longer able to operate their criminal business model profitably, and I would shed zero tears, even if it meant complete failure of the business. Any fine that merely reduces profit is effectively just a tax.
Aren’t these sorts of fines usually based on revenue and not profit? The revenue is the money taken from Europeans and not the profit. Basing the fines directly on profit doesn’t really make much sense.
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