Compliance & Ethics

The High Court has issued a consent order staying the FCA's enforcement proceedings against Huobi Global S.A. and associated unknown operators of the HTX crypto exchange until 22 September 2026 to allow settlement negotiations. If no settlement is reached by that date, standard Civil Procedure Rules will govern the litigation's resumption, with no costs awarded to either party at this stage.

ASIC issued six infringement notices totaling AUD $118,800 to Australian Retirement Trust, Telstra Super (now Tetra Servicing), and AMIST after a targeted website review found inaccurate representations about investment option composition, asset allocation, and performance objectives. The action demonstrates ASIC's intensified scrutiny of superannuation trustee digital disclosures and signals that discrepancies between website content and formal disclosure documents (like PDS/Investment Guides) will trigger enforcement even when underlying governing documents are accurate.

The FCA's Q2 2026 mortgage lending statistics show gross advances up 31.7% year-on-year to £77.4 Billion, alongside a notable rise in high loan-to-value (90%+) and high loan-to-income lending. While arrears and possessions continued to decline, the growing share of higher-risk lending metrics warrants attention from compliance and risk teams at mortgage lenders.

The FCA has publicly flagged "Novatrust-asset" as an unauthorized entity potentially targeting UK consumers with financial services or products. Compliance teams should note this addition to the FCA Warning List as part of ongoing fraud monitoring and ensure customer-facing staff are aware of the firm's details to prevent inadvertent engagement or referrals.

The Federal Court found that Choosi Pty Ltd breached consumer protection provisions of the ASIC Act by misleading consumers into believing its comparison service surveyed a broad range of insurers, when in fact it overwhelmingly compared products from a single related insurer, Hannover. This case reinforces ASIC's continued enforcement focus on comparison services and "choice architecture" misrepresentations, with penalty submissions still to come.

The FCA's Q2 2026 MLAR statistics show outstanding residential mortgage balances, gross advances, and new commitments all rising quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. While this is a routine data publication rather than a new rule, it provides compliance and risk teams with key market benchmarks for monitoring lending trends, affordability pressures, and prudential exposure.

ASIC secured a significant custodial sentence against former Western Australian director Joanne Pellew for dishonestly using her director position to transfer approximately AUD $739,655 between related companies, and for managing a corporation while disqualified. The case underscores ASIC's continued enforcement focus on director misconduct and breaches of disqualification orders, reinforcing the serious criminal consequences for abuse of the corporate form.