GRC Report Staff

The U.S. Treasury is intensifying its effort to choke off any remaining financial lifelines available to sanctioned Russian elites, and American firms are increasingly in the crosshairs. This week, the Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) unveiled two separate enforcement actions totaling more than $18 million, signaling that even indirect or obscured connections to Kremlin-aligned wealth will draw scrutiny.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a formal reprimand to Post Office Limited after its communications team mistakenly uploaded an un-redacted legal settlement document to the organization’s corporate website. The file (containing the names, home addresses, and postmaster status of 502 individuals involved in the landmark group litigation) was left publicly accessible for nearly eight weeks between April and June 2024.

South Korea’s data protection watchdog says Starbucks and its third-party auditor mishandled workers’ personal data and now both companies are being ordered to fix it. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) resolved to issue correction orders and compliance recommendations to Starbucks Corporation and Elevate Hong Kong Holdings Limited, following a probe into how the two handled personal information linked to Starbucks’ Ethical Sourcing Program in Korea.

The European Commission has launched a formal antitrust investigation into whether Meta is unfairly limiting third-party artificial intelligence providers’ access to WhatsApp, potentially shutting out competitors to its own “Meta AI” service.

Southern Phone is facing tough scrutiny after paying US $1,607,600 (AUD 2,500,560) in penalties, the highest fine the Australian Communications and Media Authority has ever issued for this type of failure, for giving scammers an easy path to take over customers’ mobile numbers.

Dutch financial institutions are beginning to show how they plan to align their business with a climate-safe future, and regulators say the early progress is encouraging, even if the road ahead is long. In a new review, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets finds that eight of the country’s largest banks and insurers are reporting on their climate transition plans and financed-emissions data in a more structured and transparent way than ever before.

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.