Serious question : I would like a person familiar with law to explain how is this not a bribe essentially? (Cos clearly it’s not treated like one. Where/what is the reasoning that invalidates my question )
It's a negotiated settlement between a regulatory agency and a business. This isn't a payment to an individual abusing their government authority to seek bribes.
So in essence if a crime or wrong doing is done by an entity and money is exchanged to reduce penalty it is considered a settlement. But the same thing done between people is a bribe.
Here the entity is technically abusing their people given authority to enrich itself and people it’s responsible to and letting go of the other entity responsible for wrongdoing. Charging more money for that is ok. But if you swap that entity for people or person it’s a crime?
I understand this is all interpretations but seems like a pretty dated way to bring “justice”
