Compliance & Ethics

Britain's communications regulator has fined Virgin Media £28 million after finding the company repeatedly subjected customers to unreasonable effort and unnecessary difficulty when they tried to cancel their contracts and switch to another provider. The penalty, announced Wednesday, is the largest Ofcom has ever imposed under its consumer protection rules for direct harm to consumers.

In interim measures published Wednesday, the Autorité de la concurrence ordered the Meta to resume talks with two organizations representing French press agencies and publishers after concluding that Meta's conduct may amount to an abuse of a dominant position. The regulator also directed the company to provide, within 15 days, the information that publishers say they need to judge whether Meta's payment offers bear any relationship to the value of the journalism appearing on its services.

On Wednesday, AMLA published draft regulatory technical standards that would establish, for the first time, a common methodology for supervisors across the European Union when enforcing breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules. The proposal is less about creating tougher enforcement than creating more consistent enforcement. If two organizations commit the same breach under the same circumstances, supervisors should begin from the same framework and, absent meaningful differences in the facts, arrive at comparable outcomes.

For nearly three years, Australians arriving at JustAnswer's website were greeted with what looked like a straightforward proposition. An automated chat promised access to expert advice for $1.30 (AUD $2), a small, refundable payment that suggested a single transaction rather than the beginning of an ongoing relationship. It was only later, often after money had already left their accounts, that many consumers discovered they had signed up for recurring monthly subscriptions costing between $29 and $49 (AUD $45 and AUD $75).

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday issued warning letters to eight companies whose advertising appears to overstate where their products were made. Seven companies were told their products may have been falsely marketed as "Made in the USA," while another received a warning over products advertised as "Made in Texas," despite indications they were imported, either entirely or in significant part.

There is a familiar rhythm to businesses that promise financial independence. The details change with technology but the promise remains durable. There is a system, the system works, and ordinary people need only follow it. The Federal Trade Commission argues that Publishing.com sold precisely that story, and on Thursday the agency formally closed the case with a final order designed to ensure the company cannot tell it the same way again.

The Federal Court of Australia has ordered ASX to pay a civil penalty of $13.5 million (AUD 20.5 million) after the exchange admitted that a market announcement misled investors by stating the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) replacement project was "progressing well." The court also ordered ASX to pay $2.0 million (AUD 3 million) toward the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's legal costs, bringing another chapter of the long-running project to a close, though not one likely to be forgotten quickly.