GRC Report Staff

FinCEN Pulls Back Two Proposed Digital Asset Rules

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has abandoned two proposed rules that would have tightened federal requirements around certain digital asset transactions, including those involving unhosted wallets and convertible virtual currency mixing.

Signal Diagnostics to Pay $20.5 Million Over Unreturned COVID-19 Overpayments

Signal Diagnostics found the problem itself. In January 2022, the clinical laboratory began an internal audit of claims it had submitted to a federal program that reimbursed healthcare providers for treating and testing uninsured patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. What the company found was not trivial. Some of the people it had billed as uninsured had health insurance.

SEC Fines Latch $1 Million After Revenue Overstatements Spanned Its SPAC Deal

In December 2020, Latch shipped $147,000 worth of hardware to one of its channel partners, but there was a catch. The partner could send all of it back, without consequence, if the building developer behind the order decided not to proceed. That condition was written down, but it simply never made its way to the people doing the accounting. Latch booked the $147,000 as revenue anyway. About six months later, the hardware came back.

Austria’s Supreme Cartel Court Raises Kiesel Fine Tenfold Over Two Illegal Mergers

Austria’s Supreme Cartel Court has increased the fine against German construction machinery company Kiesel from €240,000 to €2.4 million for implementing two mergers before the law permitted it to do so, turning what had been a relatively modest penalty into one intended, quite deliberately, to be felt.

Norway Regulator Flags Unauthorized Entity kibachag.com Linked to Swiss Warning

The Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanstilsynet) has issued a warning regarding kibachag.com, an entity also flagged by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for operating without proper authorization. This cross-border warning signals potential unlicensed financial services activity that compliance teams should monitor to prevent inadvertent exposure or referral relationships with the flagged entity.

CNPD Flags Legal Gaps in Portuguese Bill Criminalizing Digital Identity Theft

The Portuguese Data Protection Commission (CNPD) issued an opinion raising significant concerns about Bill 697/XVII/1, which would create a new criminal offense for "digital identity usurpation" under the Cybercrime Law. CNPD finds the proposed definition of "digital identity" overly broad and indeterminate, and highlights substantial overlap with existing offenses (computer forgery, computer fraud, illegitimate access), questioning the necessity and proportionality of the new crime. Compliance teams monitoring Portuguese cybercrime and data protection legislation should track the bill's evolution, as its current drafting could create overlapping liability frameworks and interpretive uncertainty.

FCA Issues Warning Against Unauthorized Firm ADM-Group

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has issued a public warning identifying ADM-Group (also referenced as ADM-Group Ltd and ADM-Group Limited) as an entity operating without proper authorization. Compliance teams should treat this as a standard unauthorized-firm alert and ensure the entity is screened against client and counterparty records, while also noting a discrepancy in regulator attribution in the source record.