Compliance & Ethics

FINRA’s 2026 Annual Regulatory Oversight Report offers a window into how risk is showing up across broker-dealers, drawn directly from the regulator’s examination and enforcement experience. While the report does not introduce new rules, it highlights recurring weaknesses and emerging pressure points, from the use of generative AI to cyber-enabled fraud and small-cap market manipulation, that are expected to shape FINRA’s supervisory focus throughout 2026.

What began as a lucrative wound-care operation in Arizona ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own incentives, leaving behind a trail of vulnerable patients, hollowed-out compliance controls, and more than $1.2 billion in fraudulent health care claims.

The European Commission has imposed fines totaling roughly €72 million on three automotive starter battery manufacturers and their industry trade association for participating in a long-running cartel that distorted pricing for car and truck batteries across Europe.

Malaysia has made real strides in strengthening its defenses against money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing over the past decade, but enforcement outcomes continue to lag behind the country’s growing investigative capabilities. That is what a new mutual evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) is saying, based on an on-site assessment carried out in February 2025.

Poland’s competition and consumer protection authority has fined P4, the operator of the Play mobile network, about $27 million (PLN 108,573,207) after ruling that a widely used discount scheme unlawfully penalized customers who paid their bills late.

TIGO Guatemala has agreed to pay more than $118 million to resolve a U.S. investigation into a years-long bribery scheme that prosecutors say was baked into the company’s local operations and designed to influence lawmakers in Guatemala.

Swiss competition authorities have opened an investigation into Apple’s control over near-field communication technology on iPhones, examining whether the company’s terms for granting access to the NFC interface raise concerns under Swiss antitrust law.