At a time when households are still feeling the strain of rising costs and businesses are navigating rapid technological change, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has set out a compliance and enforcement agenda designed to steady the ground beneath both.
Sweden’s financial watchdog has formally reprimanded Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget (SBB), concluding that the property group’s 2021 consolidated financial statements painted a rosier picture than reality allowed.
On a narrow strip of land between River Rouge and Detroit, heavy industry has shaped the skyline for generations. This week, it also shaped a major federal court ruling. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has ordered DTE Energy Company and three related entities to comply with the Clean Air Act and pay a $100 million civil penalty tied to sulfur dioxide emissions from the EES Coke facility on Zug Island.
Poland’s competition and consumer protection authority has launched proceedings against HBO Europe, alleging that the streaming provider may have infringed the collective interests of consumers by unilaterally restricting access to its service on certain devices while subscriptions remained active.
When the Digital Services Act entered into force two years ago, it was framed as a reset for the online economy. The rhetoric focused on safer digital spaces, stronger protections for fundamental rights, and curbing manipulative or harmful platform behavior.
For nearly four years, motorists pulling into nine Mobil-branded petrol stations across north and central Queensland were told they were filling up with “Mobil Synergy Fuel”, a product marketed as containing additives designed to protect engines and improve performance. They weren’t. Recently, an Australian Federal Court ordered Mobil Oil Australia to pay $10.4 million (AUD 16 million) in penalties after finding the company had made false or misleading representations about the fuel sold at those sites, in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.
Nearly a decade after Carillion collapsed in one of the UK’s most high-profile corporate failures, the Financial Conduct Authority has formally censured the company for misleading the market in the year before its liquidation and fined its former chief executive for his role in the affair.