[triactual]

They said revenue but they don’t understand what it means. Only a few percent of that revenue is actually profit - perhaps there is no profit depending on the market. It’s an especially tiresome thing to point out since probably more than half of HN readers are paid a salary out of these kind of revenue figures.

[denton-scratch]

The law provides for fines to be a percentage of turnover.

A fine as a proportion of profits just reduces your profits by a few percent; as long as your profits are still huge, it doesn't matter, and you pay up. If it's a percentage of turnover, you might well end up with losses for that year, and no profits at all.

The regulation is designed to make your shareholders sit up, and put pressure on the board to come into compliance. It was targeted at turnover rather than profits for obvious reasons - corporate accountants are very good at making profits invisible. And turnover is relatively easy to measure.

[Edit] Changed "revenue" to "turnover" - "revenue" was an alternative fact.

[thrwyoilarticle]

It's unfair to assume they don't know what revenue is. Comparing it to the revenue is perfectly valid. Amazon famously didn't make a profit for many years, does that mean that they couldn't afford any fine during that period? I think it implies that the profit of a company is a poor indicator of their wealth and what they can afford.