GRC Report Staff

The UK’s corporate governance watchdog is taking a closer look at how the country’s largest private companies explain their governance decisions and sees both progress and room to grow. In its first reporting insights since taking over oversight of the Wates Corporate Governance Principles earlier this year, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) says many companies are using the framework effectively to articulate how boards oversee risk and engage with stakeholders. But when it comes to explaining corporate purpose, how boards are structured, and how directors are paid, disclosures are still often falling flat.

South Korea’s competition regulator has fined Webzen for misleading players about the chances of winning rare items in its hit mobile game MU Archangel. The Commission, chaired by Biung-ghi Ju, announced that Webzen will face a corrective order and administrative surcharges totaling KRW 1.58 billion (about USD $1.2 million) for using what officials described as deceptive practices tied to in-game “loot boxes.”

American Express has landed in the crosshairs of France’s data protection regulator, which says the company repeatedly ignored rules that give internet users control over how they’re tracked online.

America’s largest apartment manager is being forced to clean up how it markets rent to prospective tenants. Greystar has agreed to pay $24 million and end what regulators call a pattern of hiding unavoidable monthly fees behind deceptively low rent ads. The resolution follows a joint lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Colorado, which accused the real estate giant of luring renters in with prices that didn’t reflect what they would actually pay to live in its properties.

After years of warnings that corruption too easily slips through cracks between national legal systems, EU lawmakers have reached a political deal to tighten the net. On Tuesday night, negotiators from the European Parliament and Council agreed on the Union’s first directive to harmonise criminal laws against corruption, a milestone many in Brussels say is overdue.

Europe wants deeper capital markets, more private investment, and a financial system that can compete globally. But one of the bloc’s leading regulators is warning that the EU is trying to build that future on an outdated supervisory map.

Australia’s financial watchdog is tightening expectations for industry codes of conduct, making clear that if banks, insurers, lenders, or investment firms want to claim their codes are “ASIC-approved,” they’ll need to prove those codes actually work for consumers.