In the states, my television view of the game was from an NBC broadcast (does NBC use a UK feed for the game? - I don't know for sure).
At any rate, on NBC, the Foden foul just wasn't clear based on the NBC feed during the game - NBC showed a couple of quick, inconclusive angles and moved on - my initial impression was that it was a foul... I didn't see any evidence that it wasn't a foul on replay... but nothing was conclusive to make matters clear. At the time I gave VAR/refs the benefit of doubt - but not now of course having seen the full body of evidence.
But the penalty call against Laporte was obviously ridiculous - immediately so. Laporte did have his hand on Vestergaard, but not a foul IMO - this happens all the time. Vestergaard, feeling contact, leapt backwards into the air - just prior to the leap, Laporte did have his feet directly behind Vestergaard but when Vestergaard pulled his theatrics, Laporte had withdrawn his feet - it's a clear dive.
For whatever reason, NBC live commentators thought that this was a penalty. I've no idea how they reached this obviously wrong conclusion. Tim Howard at halftime stated diplomatically that the penalty was "soft" - IMO - it wasn't a penalty at all.
Desired procedure for the Laporte call - IMO - would have been for VAR officials to ask that the onfield ref take a look at replays before proceeding. Yes there was contact so I suppose that one could claim that this was a penalty - but at the same time it looked like a dive. So ask the onfield ref to take a look at replay to make sure that he stood by his initial decision. Taking a look at replay I'd like to think that he'd have reversed his decision.