Europe’s long-promised reset of anti-money laundering supervision is moving from legislative text to lived reality. Speaking in Frankfurt on Tuesday, Claudia Buch, Chair of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank, used a policy workshop to lay out what the arrival of the European Anti-Money Laundering Authority actually means in practice.
For millions of users, losing access to a Facebook or Instagram account is not a minor inconvenience. It can mean lost sales, reputational damage, or private messages falling into the wrong hands. And when that happens, speed matters. That urgency is at the center of new charges brought by Urząd Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów against Meta Platforms, the company that manages Facebook and Instagram in Europe.
A Dutch court has trimmed a multimillion-euro fine imposed on a crypto service provider for operating in the Netherlands without the legally required registration, in a case that continues to test how aggressively regulators can enforce anti-money laundering rules against the crypto sector.
Hong Kong’s securities regulator has taken disciplinary action against Kylin International, fining the firm about $1.15 million (HK$9 million) for a series of compliance and governance failures tied to its management of private funds.
The Italian Competition Authority has said it fined Agos Ducato €800,000 after concluding the company spent years refusing direct debit repayments from non-Italian SEPA IBANs or steering customers into a more burdensome process than the one used for Italian accounts. The conduct, the Authority said, ran from February 2014 through the first quarter of 2023, cutting against the EU’s basic promise that paying in euros across SEPA should feel the same whether the account sits in Milan or Munich.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has secured $17.85 million in multi-state settlements with pharmaceutical companies Lannett Company and Bausch Health, capping another chapter in a sweeping, years-long effort by states to unwind alleged price-fixing in the generic drug market.
Quebec’s securities tribunal has imposed more than $1 million in penalties and sweeping market bans after concluding that a group tied to Ace Prime Group and Axes-Prime Ltd. orchestrated a fraudulent online investment scheme that left most investors with little to show for their money.