Who "controls" whether a late payment shows up on your credit report?

The Congress of the United States of America.

No one has the ability to retract accurate information from a credit report. Once they report it, it is out of their hands, but it not up to the reporting bureaus either. It cannot be cleared until the time that the laws of the United States of America require that it be cleared, generally after 7 or 7 1/2 years.

The lender is the one who reports the late payment or any other status of your account. They report to the 3 credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax). If you are trying to clear something up you can start with the lender to see if they will "forgive" and remove it from the report sent to the credit bureaus. If they refuse to remove or forgive it you will have to contact each of the 3 bureaus either online, through snail mail, or over the phone to dispute it which is normally a 30 day process. Most people recommend the snail mail route as it leaves a paper trail. Please note that Experian (1/3 Credit Bureaus) ONLY allows for online disputes.

the credit dept of whoever you are late paying - it has to be 30 days past the due date before they will report anything - nothing can be removed from your credit history - it's part of your history - a small one won;t kill you