> The first is they conclude they're going to get slapped no matter what and then do whatever they want and write off the penalties as unavoidable because better behavior doesn't actually avoid them anyway.
European Commission fines are no small matter. They may be small at first, and may even be zero (just a warning), but the policy is to increase fines on non-compliance up to the point where the target complies. They can't write off penalties as unavoidable.
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.
European Commission fines are no small matter. They may be small at first, and may even be zero (just a warning), but the policy is to increase fines on non-compliance up to the point where the target complies. They can't write off penalties as unavoidable.