Compliance & Ethics

A New Zealand High Court has imposed a $1.3 million (NZD $2.1 million) penalty on ASB Bank after internal process failures resulted in incorrect charges and missed discounts for thousands of customers. The ruling follows enforcement action by New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority and stems from issues tied to the bank’s insurance products and digital banking services. In total, more than 25,000 customers were affected, prompting ASB to refund approximately $2.9 million (NZD $4.7 million) once the issues were identified.

Poland’s competition and consumer protection authority had a busy year in 2025, issuing hundreds of decisions across sectors ranging from banking and telecommunications to e-commerce and agricultural machinery, and imposing more than $290 million (PLN 1.15 billion) in fines.

Two companies operating in New Zealand’s courier market have been ordered to pay a combined $724,000 USD ($1.225 million NZD) after the country’s competition regulator uncovered cartel conduct involving agreements that restricted competition between courier providers.

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has opened a new investigation into Microsoft, examining whether the company’s licensing practices around its enterprise software may be steering customers toward its own cloud platform and away from competing services.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has finalized two rule changes aimed at reducing compliance burdens for community banks, eliminating an outdated reporting requirement and expanding streamlined approval pathways for certain corporate activities.

The UK’s anti-money laundering oversight regime for lawyers and accountants is stronger than it was in 2018. But according to the latest report from the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision, it is not yet where it needs to be.

The UK’s competition watchdog has turned its attention to the hotel sector, opening an investigation into whether some of the world’s largest hotel chains shared competitively sensitive information through a common data analytics platform.