COPENHAGEN—A 22-year-old Norwegian student has been handed a 250,000-kroner ($38,750 Canadian) fine for drunken driving — but can still count herself lucky.

Katharina G. Andresen is reportedly Norway’s richest woman, a tobacco heiress with a fortune estimated by Forbes at $1.57 billion.

Fines for drunken driving in Norway are based on the defendant’s income. Newspaper Finansavisen reported that Oslo City Court said the penalty could have been up to 40 million kroner ($6.2 million) if based on Andresen’s assets.

The Guardian reported that the state prosecutor had also demanded 18 days in prison, but court accepted that she had “no fixed income” and that her assets “have not yielded any dividend yet.”

The court did increase the fine because of her estimated wealth, however.

Andresen told the court she is a student and effectively lives with her parents. She has a monthly allowance of about $1,100 and about $110,000 in a chequing account, she said.

She was also banned from driving for 13 months.

Andresen’s father gave her a 42-per cent share in the family-owned investment company in 2007, leading Forbes to declare her the world’s second-youngest billionaire. The family’s wealth stems from its 1859 acquisition of the Norwegian tobacco company JL Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik, the Guardian reported.

In Scandinavian culture, fortunes were often handed over to the younger generation earlier than in other countries, as a way of engaging the young in the family business, the Telegraph has reported, noting “it is also likely beneficial to do so for tax purposes.”