Compliance & Ethics

Two companies operating a wood treatment facility in Eugene, Oregon, along with their president, have been sentenced for repeated environmental violations, including boiling hazardous waste and venting the pollutants directly into the air. A federal judge ordered J.H. Baxter & Co. Inc., its California-based counterpart J.H. Baxter & Co., and their president Georgia Baxter-Krause to pay a combined $1.5 million in criminal fines.

The European Commission has hit two of the world’s biggest tech companies, Apple and Meta, with massive fines for failing to comply with key obligations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a regulation designed to level the playing field in Europe’s digital landscape. Apple has been fined €500 million, while Meta faces a €200 million penalty, as the Commission accuses them of undermining fair competition and consumer choice in different ways.

In separate settlements with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), both J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and SpeedRoute LLC have agreed to pay fines for violations of FINRA rules and federal securities regulations. These settlements address deficiencies in supervisory systems, failure to adhere to reporting requirements, and lapses in financial and risk management controls.

The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) imposed a series of regulatory measures on AKBANK AG following a special inspection of the institution’s business operations. BaFin’s findings revealed significant shortcomings across several critical areas, including anti-money laundering practices, internal audits, and business transaction documentation. The financial regulator has mandated that the bank address these issues promptly, and has levied a total of €432,500 in administrative fines.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has secured a monumental win in its second monopolization case against Google. A U.S. District Court ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed that Google’s stranglehold on the digital advertising market violated antitrust laws, a major victory in the ongoing struggle to rein in Big Tech.

‍The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken a stance against accessiBe, approving a final consent order that slaps the company with a $1 million fine. This comes after accusations that accessiBe misled consumers with inflated claims about its accessibility tool, the accessWidget, which the company marketed as a one-stop solution for making websites fully compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Uber, accusing the ridesharing giant of misleading consumers with its Uber One subscription service. The complaint, which was filed today, claims that Uber signed up customers for its paid service without their consent, charged them for benefits that didn’t quite add up, and made it nearly impossible to cancel once they realized the service wasn’t what they were promised.