Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) has admitted to years of widespread misconduct, including unconscionable conduct in dealings with the Australian Government, mishandling customer hardship cases, misleading interest rate promises, and charging fees to deceased customers. The bank now faces proposed penalties of $156 million (AUD 240 million), subject to approval by the Federal Court.
The European Union’s competition commissioner Teresa Ribera has made clear that Brussels won’t be softening its stance on antitrust enforcement, even as it tests a new balance between headline-grabbing fines and quieter negotiations with multinational companies.
At FINSIA’s The Regulators event in Sydney on 12 September, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Commissioner Simone Constant discussed the importance of simplicity in compliance during uncertain times.
What began as casual emails and WhatsApp messages has ended with some of Britain’s biggest sports broadcasters facing more than £4.2 million in fines. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled that Sky, BT, IMG, ITV, and the BBC coordinated pay rates for freelance workers, from camera operators to sound technicians, undermining fair competition in an industry heavily dependent on short-term talent.
Shoppers thought they were getting a little extra bang for their buck. Instead, thousands walked away from The Good Guys’ stores only to find their promised “StoreCash” vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has wrapped up what Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham dubbed an “enforcement sprint,” issuing six simultaneous orders against 10 financial firms and securing $8.325 million in penalties. The initiative, unveiled in March, was designed to clear a backlog of long-running compliance cases that had consumed enforcement bandwidth for years.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken its first enforcement action under the INFORM Consumers Act, ordering Temu’s parent company Whaleco to pay a $2 million civil penalty for alleged violations of the law.