Acrimony on the board of photocopying company Xerox is set to continue, after moves by activist investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason to move the company in a different direction were rebuffed last week. Meanwhile, Australia’s media industry has had a chance to vent its frustrations with digital platforms Facebook and Google, with one prominent newspaper publisher calling the US companies anticompetitive purveyors of fake news.

China may be well known for monitoring its citizens' online activities, but that doesn't mean it's unconcerned about personal data protection. As the revelations continue to pile up in the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, Beijing's guidelines for handling personal information are more relevant than ever, and they're going into effect in just a few weeks. MLex Correspondent Xu Yuan explains the latest Chinese digital developments to our Asia managing editor, David Plott.

Activist shareholder Sandon Capital's vision for Specialty Fashion is being thwarted at every turn; Australia is being singled out as the competition-law outlier over its reluctance to impose tough penalties.

A looming May deadline for companies around the globe to adapt their systems to the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation got plenty of airtime at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit in Washington last week, with data regulators from Austria, France and Ireland – as well as EU officials – urging businesses to quickly put the GDPR into practice, or face hefty fines. Unsurprisingly, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal and the social network's response to the ensuing outcry from regulators and privacy groups attracted blunt opinions and subtle asides throughout the discussions, with Facebook’s Rob Sherman on hand to offer a frank account of the events.

Does UK data-protection law mean Google should be forced to block historical search results when requested to so? That was the core question as the first cases to test the “right to be forgotten” principle were heard in the British courts recently as two unidentified businessmen laid out their case for the search company to be ordered to remove links to reports about their old convictions. The issue has become a hot topic since the right to be forgotten principle was cemented in a landmark EU court ruling in 2014; it has also been strengthened in new privacy rules entering force in May. With a ruling from the London court expected as early as the end of March, Vesela Gladicheva, Senior Technology Correspondent, talks over the case and its implications with Ana Rita Rego, Managing Editor in London.

A week after US President Donald Trump signed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum into law, producers and trade partners around the world are scrambling to respond. The EU has vowed to hit back with its own measures, but it's also seeking an exemption from Washington. MLex trade reporters Poppy Carnell and Joanna Sopinska talk to editor Sam Wilkin about the forms an exemption could take, and how likely Brussels is to succeed.

Ana Rita Rego, Managing Editor in London, and Vesela Gladicheva, Senior Technology Correspondent, discuss the EU's new sweeping data privacy rules. The General Data Protection Regulation will apply from May 25 and companies, governments and regulators are scrambling to get ready for the law. The GDPR will boost citizens' rights and impose strict new obligations on any organization handling Europeans' personal information. There is a lot at stake in getting compliance right, not least because of regulators' ability to impose hefty fines.

As the world awaits for Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, the GDPR, to go into effect in May, this year’s IAPP Global Privacy Summit is expected to draw more than 3,300 delegates – a 30 percent increase over the past two years. Attendees will come from more than 30 countries, a list running from Afghanistan to Uruguay. The event is the world’s largest annual gathering of regulators and privacy and data security lawyers. Regulators from Europe and the rest of the world will be particularly prominent this year, as the Trump administration’s slow pace of nominations to the US Federal Trade Commission mean no new FTC commissioners been confirmed by the US Senate. That has left a dearth of US privacy and data security regulators for the summit, and may allow a bigger role for regulators from Europe, Canada and other jurisdictions.

Since China’s Anti-Monopoly Law came into force in 2008 until the present day, a ministry and two state agencies have overseen separate aspects of antitrust enforcement in the country. Now, a new super-regulator is about to make those subdivided roles all its own. MLex Asia Managing Editor David Plott hears from our China-based Market Analyst Eliot Gao why Beijing has shaken things up, and what’s in store.

As Bitcoin has grabbed headlines with its wild price swings, authorities around the world have been scrambling to regulate the new phenomenon of digital currencies. Tsering Namgyal, MLex’s Hong Kong-based financial correspondent, was in Brussels with chief correspondent John Rega and news editor Sam Wilkin. Here they discuss different global approaches and what’s at stake.