Compliance & Ethics

This week, the Federal Court of Australia ordered Westpac Banking Corporation to pay a $18.6 million (AUD $26 million) civil penalty after the bank admitted it failed to properly respond to more than 200 hardship notices between 2017 and 2023. The requests came through Westpac and its subsidiary brands, including St George Bank and Bank of Melbourne, and involved customers struggling to keep up with repayments on home loans, credit cards, personal loans, and car loans.

Hong Kong’s market regulator laid out a blunt assessment of what it found while reviewing the account opening practices of 12 securities brokers. Some firms accepted questionable or forged documents during onboarding. Some performed inadequate due diligence on account opening materials. Others showed weaknesses in the way they handled cross-border correspondent relationships with overseas intermediaries. The regulator’s language became noticeably sharper when discussing the misuse of investment accounts for suspicious or illicit transactions and the corresponding rise in money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

The European Commission has published its third annual report on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), outlining a year marked by enforcement actions, expanding investigations, and continued efforts to shape competition rules for some of the world’s largest digital platforms.

On Tuesday, the FTC said it had warned 12 companies that they appear to be failing to comply with the Take It Down Act, the federal law that officially entered enforcement this week after a one-year compliance period. The problem, according to the FTC, is not especially complicated. The companies allegedly do not appear to provide victims with a legally compliant process for requesting the removal of nonconsensual intimate images appearing on their platforms.

On Wednesday, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre ordered Bankstown District Sports Club to appoint an external auditor after raising concerns that the club’s anti-money laundering controls may not be strong enough to prevent criminal exploitation.

Two Canadian steel companies and one of their top executives have agreed to pay $19 million to resolve allegations that they evaded customs duties by falsely declaring the origin of imported steel products entering the United States. Canada-based Farjess, Royal Canadian Steel, and part-owner and president Feroz Jessani allegedly avoided paying duties on flat-rolled steel products by misrepresenting their countries of origin to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The OCC has outlined a series of supervisory and regulatory changes aimed at reducing burden on community banks while preserving what the agency described as a risk-based approach to oversight. The reforms touch everything from Community Reinvestment Act examinations to capital calculations, model risk management, and cybersecurity reviews.