The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has released its second consolidated report on sanctions and measures imposed across the EU’s financial markets in 2024, and while the pace of enforcement held steady, the price of wrongdoing climbed steeply.
Ofcom has fined Royal Mail £21 million after the postal operator once again failed to meet its statutory delivery targets for First and Second Class mail during the 2024/25 financial year.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has secured $101 million in redress for UK and other non-U.S. investors in a fund sub-managed by BlueCrest Capital Management, concluding a years-long legal battle over the firm’s mishandling of conflicts of interest.
The European Commission has fined high-end fashion houses Gucci, Chloé, and Loewe a total of more than €157 million for restricting independent retailers’ ability to set their own prices, an anticompetitive practice known as resale price maintenance (RPM). The Commission said the pricing restrictions, which ran for years across the European Economic Area (EEA), raised prices and reduced consumer choice in the luxury fashion market.
Visa and Mastercard have agreed to pay a combined $199.5 million to resolve a long-running class action lawsuit accusing them of unfairly shifting fraud-related costs to merchants. The proposed deal, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, marks the latest in a string of settlements over card network rules and awaits approval from Chief Judge Margo Brodie, according to a recent Reuters report.
Germany’s financial watchdog, BaFin, has fined Oldenburgische Landesbank AG €910,000 ($992,000) after uncovering multiple compliance and control breaches under the German Securities Trading Act (WpHG) during 2020 and 2021.
Italy’s competition authority has slapped ALD Automotive Italia with a €5 million fine ($5.4 million) for misleading customers of its long-term rental service. At the heart of the case is an optional liability-limitation package, sold to almost all ALD clients, that was pitched as offering peace of mind but came with hidden strings attached.