Category: Regulatory News

Biden administration policy-makers hated you more than you knew. From the start of the Covid pandemic, I warned that the feds were vilifying anyone who failed to kowtow to the latest commands. In October 2023, I wrote: “Federal bureaucrats heaved together a bunch of letters to contrive an ominous new acronym for the latest peril to domestic tranquility. The result: AGAAVE—’anti-government, anti-authority violent extremism’—which looks like a typo for a sugar substitute. The FBI vastly expanded the supposed AGAAVE peril by…

The United States Department of Justice is in talks to drop a criminal prosecution against Boeing (BOE, Washington National) stemming from two fatal B737 MAX crashes, according to a May 18 court filing. Instead, the DOJ says the matter is likely to be resolved through a settlement that will not result in a criminal conviction. Multiple outlets reported on a May 16 meeting between the DOJ and law firms representing some of the 346 people killed in the crashes in 2018 and 2019. Boeing faces…

Brussels has threatened to bar American companies from bidding for taxpayer-funded contracts as Europe seeks to retaliate against Donald Trump’s tariffs. Stéphane Séjourné, executive vice president of the European Commission, said the EU has “the cards” to hit back at Mr Trump’s new levies of 20pc on goods and 25pc on cars. “We could decide to withdraw all American companies from European public procurement,” Mr Séjourné, who is also commissioner for industrial strategy, told Radio France. It represents a fresh…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced plans to ease British mortgage lending rules, aiming to help more people buy homes. The regulator is preparing to review and potentially relax stress-testing requirements that assess borrowers’ ability to handle higher interest rates. Additionally, the FCA will launch a public debate in June on the mortgage market, focusing on risk appetite, affordability testing, product innovation, lending to older borrowers, and consumer information needs. A consultation in May will explore ways to simplify remortgaging,…

President Donald Trump’s administration has said no one at the Federal Aviation Administration with a “critical safety” position has been fired as it cuts the federal work force, but some FAA jobs that were eliminated had direct roles in supporting safety inspectors and airport operations, according to their union and former employees. About 400 personnel were let go starting Friday. There is still not a complete picture of who was fired, but the union representing about 130 of them said…

Note: View the settlement agreement here. Health Net Federal Services Inc. (HNFS) of Rancho Cordova, California and its corporate parent, St. Louis-based Centene Corporation, have agreed to pay $11,253,400 to resolve claims that HNFS falsely certified compliance with cybersecurity requirements in a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to administer the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) TRICARE health benefits program for servicemembers and their families. In 2016, Centene acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of Health Net…

Amazon.com was sued on Wednesday by consumers who accused the retailing giant of secretly tracking their movements through their cellphones, and selling data it collects. According to a proposed class action in San Francisco federal court, Amazon obtained “backdoor access” to consumers’ phones by providing tens of thousands of app developers with code known as Amazon Ads SDK to be embedded in their apps. This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers…

Vanguard has bowed to regulatory pressure and agreed to new oversight of its investments in some US lenders, a decision that could have sweeping implications for money managers and banks. The deal, which the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp disclosed on Friday, will allow Vanguard’s funds to continue to be huge shareholders in a wide swath of the country’s banks while also increasing the watchdog’s supervisory power over the $10tn money manager. Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street have amassed large…

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s Senate on Thursday passed a measure to abolish the autonomous bodies that regulate some economic sectors and ensure government transparency, a reform that has sparked outcry from the opposition and industry. Lawmakers in the upper chamber voted on the proposal’s general terms with 86 in favor and 42 against, with nearly the same tally coming in for the bill’s particular terms. It had passed in the lower house last week. The reform proposes scrapping autonomous agencies…

LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators slapped LinkedIn on Thursday with a 310 million euro ($335 million) fine for violations of the bloc’s stringent data privacy rules. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission reprimanded the Microsoft-owned professional social networking site over concerns about the “lawfulness, fairness and transparency” of its personal data processing for advertising purposes. The Dublin-based watchdog is LinkedIn’s lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because that’s where the company’s European headquarters is based. The watchdog said it carried…

Raytheon Company (Raytheon) — a subsidiary of Arlington, Virginia-based defense contractor RTX (formerly known as Raytheon Technologies Corporation) — will pay over $950 million to resolve the Justice Department’s investigations into: (i) a major government fraud scheme involving defective pricing on certain government contracts and (ii) violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and its implementing regulations, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Raytheon will enter into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in…

Evolving client needs and industry challenges The financial advice sector is adapting to profound shifts: an ageing adviser and client population, a massive transfer of wealth, the rise of defined contribution (DC) pensions over defined benefit (DB). In addition to a younger generation that engages with financial advice very differently from their parents, often through apps and social media. We’re also facing geopolitical and climate uncertainties, changing interest rates, and industry consolidation, not to mention the growing impact of artificial…

According to a report from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on Oct. 10th, TD Bank’s U.S. wing agreed to pay over $3 billion in penalties. The fine was for failing to properly monitor money laundering activities. The bank has also accepted limits on its future growth in the U.S. FinCEN found that TD Bank facilitated over $1 billion in transfers linked to two crypto exchanges — one based in the United Kingdom and the other in Colombia. TD Bank…

TORONTO — The more than US$3-billion settlement TD Bank Group has reached with U.S. regulators for its failures to oversee money laundering risks has underlined what some say are relatively weak enforcement options in Canada. Denis Meunier, president of DMeunier Consulting Inc. and a former deputy director of Fintrac, said fines in Canada have to increase significantly to provide adequate deterrence and not become just a cost of doing business. He says the federal government should add substantial fines for…

Canada-based financial institution TD Bank has announced its agreement to pay over USD 3 billion, pleading guilty to criminal charges related to money laundering in the US. As detailed by regulators, the fine follows TD Bank’s failure to appropriately monitor money laundering by drug cartels and other criminals, allowing them to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful funds. In addition, the bank did not enforce sufficient defences against money laundering for nearly 10 years. It did not efficiently…