The Regulatory Digest is the companion to Five to follow. It covers the full sweep of developments across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, and beyond, including smaller and sector-specific regulators that don’t always make the headline round.
July’s defining pattern was compression – a rare pile-up of commencement dates around 1 July. August’s pattern is what compression produces once the dust settles: enforcement, follow-through, and the first hard tests of frameworks that were, until recently, only theoretical. Regulators that expanded their populations or powers in July spent the following weeks proving – or failing to prove – that the machinery behind those changes actually works.
Australia
AUSTRAC pairs a bigger register with visible enforcement
Within days of its AML/CTF regime expanding roughly fivefold on 1 July, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) closed two long-running investigations into the corporate bookmaking sector. On 3 July, AUSTRAC finalised its enforceable undertaking with Sportsbet after an independent audit confirmed the completion of remediation across five required compliance areas. Three days later, it entered a fresh enforceable undertaking with bet365, following an audit that found gaps in the operator’s risk assessment methodology and suspicious transaction reporting; bet365 must submit a progress report by December 2026 and complete a final compliance audit by mid-2027. The sequencing – a fivefold population increase followed almost immediately by two finalised enforcement actions against existing registrants – is a deliberate display of enforcement capacity as AUSTRAC takes on its expanded regime.
A rare retrospective power: the Victorian Building and Plumbing Commission’s new reach
From 1 July, the Victorian Building and Plumbing Commission (BPC) gained the power to issue rectification orders for defective building work up to 10 years after an occupancy permit is issued, a retrospective enforcement reach that did not exist under its predecessor regime. The change gives the BPC standing to pursue defects long after a building has changed hands, shifting risk back onto builders and away from purchasers. It is a state-level regulator exercising a materially expanded, retrospective power that most equivalently resourced regulators elsewhere still lack.
In brief
- The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) finalised amendments to its general insurance reinsurance framework on 7 July, a smaller follow-on to the CPS 230 transition that completed 1 July.
- The Clean Energy Regulator flagged a new role regulating interoperable consumer energy resources, confirmed in a 21 July update. Separately, it suspended 21 companies from the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme in the April–June quarter for failing fit-and-proper-person requirements, and introduced an AI tool to check solar battery labelling compliance.
- The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) reported $830 million in court-ordered civil penalties and $643.5 million returned to consumers for the 2025–26 financial year, its strongest enforcement period on record.
New Zealand
Taumata Arowai’s performance report lands alongside its prosecution
The Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai, established after the 2016 Havelock North contamination outbreak, published its Network Environmental Performance Report 2024/25 on 27 July, finding several South Island councils in breach of consent limits. Grey District Council recorded the highest water loss of any council in the report’s leakage rankings, in the same reporting cycle as the prosecution Taumata Arowai filed against the council in June. Taumata Arowai is now holding a public body accountable through both a performance report and a courtroom, at the same time.
The FMA’s new mandate takes its first operational steps
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) formally absorbed consumer credit regulation from the Commerce Commission on 1 July, following the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill’s third reading in May. Existing certified lenders received automatic market services licences under the transition, and the FMA gained stop-order powers immediately – a tool the Commerce Commission never held under the old regime. The Commerce Commission has described the handover as “seamless,” but the substantive test is what the FMA does with its new stop-order authority over the months ahead.
In brief
- A Ministry for Regulation Red Tape Tipline complaint led the government to agree to recognise US and EU toy-safety standards, catching up with the benchmark Australia already applies, with modelling estimating a net benefit of up to NZ$6.8 million over 10 years.
- The Regulatory Standards Board, operational since 1 July, is now receiving public complaints about existing legislation through the Ministry for Regulation’s complaints portal.
- The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act received Royal Assent on 9 July, formally completing the amendment process reported in June.
United Kingdom
The Critical Third Parties regime goes live
From 13 July, the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) began jointly overseeing the first Critical Third Parties following formal designation by the Treasury: Amazon Web Services EMEA, Google Cloud EMEA, Microsoft Ireland Operations, and Oracle Corporation UK. It is the first live application of a regime finalised in November 2024, and it names four global technology providers directly as subject to financial-resilience oversight for the first time. The regime tests whether regulators built for financial institutions can meaningfully supervise the cloud infrastructure those institutions now depend on.
Motor finance scheme: the tribunal sets a timetable
Following the Upper Tribunal’s 1 July partial suspension of the FCA’s £7.5 billion motor finance redress scheme, the FCA published updated operational guidance for lenders on 20 July, clarifying that firms are not currently required to calculate compensation, make payments, or notify customers, but must continue system preparation. The Tribunal has now set a substantive hearing for 14–18 December 2026, or 16–26 February 2027 if postponed. If the scheme survives and any ruling is not appealed, the FCA expects payments to begin in 2027; a successful challenge could push redress into 2028.
In brief
- The Charity Commission’s year-to-March-2026 figures show 4,996 cases concluded, up 14% on the prior year, with inquiry powers used 1,608 times (almost double the year before) and 594 whistleblowing complaints received.
- Ofqual reaffirmed on 16 July that AI may not be used as the sole marker in any assessment forming part of a regulated qualification, hardening its earlier position into standing guidance.
- The UK’s new short selling framework took effect 13 July, reporting aggregated net short positions rather than identifying individual short sellers.
- A Regulation Action Plan Progress Report was published 7 July, tracking UK regulators’ pledges under the plan’s key regulator commitments.
Canada
The Competition Bureau’s food supply chain examination widens
The Competition Bureau took enforcement action over retail fuel supply in the Niagara region in July, the most recent move in an examination of Canada’s food supply chain that has also drawn in grocery giant Sobeys’ property-control practices. The widening scope – from a single sector examination to parallel actions touching grocery real estate practices and fuel retailing – suggests the food supply chain review is functioning as an entry point into wider grocery-sector enforcement.
OSFI’s public dashboard completes its first month
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ (OSFI) Streamlined Approvals Framework’s recently launched public-facing applicant-tracking dashboard has now run for over a month, letting anyone see the name and status of every applicant moving through the approvals process in real time. A parallel Quarterly Release addressed liquidity preparedness, crypto-asset capital treatment, and enhanced public disclosure of crypto-asset exposures – continuing the predictable, scheduled disclosure model OSFI has used since 2024.
In brief
- The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) implemented changes to the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization’s (CIRO) recognition order effective 4 July, continuing the harmonisation of Canada’s investment regulatory framework across provinces.
- Parliament returns 21 September to begin Senate consideration of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act 2026, which passed third reading in the House on 18 June.
- Bill C-29, proposing a Financial Crimes Agency with police powers alongside the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), remains before Parliament.
Learn more about the key stories to follow in Five to Follow, our companion piece on the regulatory stories that deserve your attention this month.
