For Elmer Funke Kupper, three-and-half years in a Kafkaesque legal limbo are now over. The Australia Federal Police this week has closed an investigation into overseas corruption at his former employer Tabcorp. It was a probe in which Mr Funke Kupper was never named. But he finally knows there is no chance of following Leighton chief financial officer Peter Gregg, serving home detention for falsifying company books.

The Tabcorp investigation cost Mr Funke Kupper one of the country’s top corporate jobs as chief executive of the Australian Securities Exchange, when leaked news of the investigation saw him honourably step down. And it follows the harsh treatment of some who appeared before the Hayne royal commission, which Bill Shorten suggested would fail if it didn’t manage to send some bankers to jail.