Good morning. The recent volatility in financial markets due to the coronavirus pandemic could provide investors with more of an incentive to grill companies on nonfinancial risks.

Environmental, social and governance investing was growing in popularity before the virus began to circulate, as investors flocked to companies that have taken steps to manage nonfinancial risks related to matters such as climate change, board diversity or human rights issues in the supply chain. But the pandemic has demonstrated on a large scale the importance of other factors that are paramount to ESG investors. Among them: disaster preparedness, continuity planning and employee treatment through benefits such as paid sick leave as companies direct employees to work from home.

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Companies should expect more investors to ask questions about resilience and contingency planning, viewing the issues in light of the pandemic as relevant to a company’s long-term performance, according to Jeff Meli, global head of research at British investment bank Barclays. Down the line, those conversations could evolve to broader ESG discussions, including topics such as whether telecommuting could reduce a company’s carbon footprint, he said in an interview.

“There is obviously a lot of volatility and a lot of big open questions just in the very near term that need to get answered,” Mr. Meli tells Risk & Compliance Journal. “…Over the long term, I think if anything this would likely accelerate the focus on ESG from an investor standpoint.”

Eleven members of the U.S. House of Representatives have urged the European Union to impose sanctions on Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, the latest attempt by lawmakers to combat alleged election meddling by the Kremlin in the U.S. and allied countries as well as possible disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers said Mr. Prigozhin has been serving as an agent for the Kremlin acting primarily through the Wagner Group, a Russian security company, and Internet Research Agency LLC. Mr. Prigozhin and IRA were indicted in 2018 on charges of engaging in a widespread effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Tuesday’s letter follows a similar plea earlier this month by five Democratic U.S. senators who sent a letter to the EU’s ambassador, Stavros Lambrinidis, urging the bloc to impose economic pressure on Mr. Prigozhin and the Wagner Group over concerns of potential foreign interference as the U.S. presidential election nears.

The assessment of the Swedish bank was expected to conclude in April, but the Swedish FSA, known as the Finansinspektionen, said that it was now planning to issue its decision in June. The spread of the novel coronavirus has caused the FSA to adjust its priorities, the regulator said in a statement. It is focusing on responding to the economic fallout from the pandemic, a spokeswoman said.

The U.S. Senate approved the largest economic stimulus package in recent memory, moving the estimated $2 trillion bill to the House as Congress seeks to give American families and businesses a financial shield against the ravages of the new coronavirus pandemic.

Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), the House majority leader, said late Wednesday that the House would consider the stimulus bill on Friday. If passed, the new law would provide loans and other disbursements to a wide swath of the economy, including direct payments to Americans and loans to large and small companies.

The bill also greatly expands unemployment insurance to cover freelance and gig workers, refills drained state coffers and extends additional resources to health-care providers.

• Relief Package Would Limit Coronavirus Damage, Not Restore Economy
• The Long Run of American Job Growth Has Ended
• Europe Splits Over Proposed New Debt to Combat Coronavirus

The Securities and Exchange Commission prevailed in a key stage of its cryptocurrency enforcement crackdown, as a federal judge issued an injunction halting Telegram Group Inc. from distributing its digital coins.

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel wrote the SEC had shown a “substantial likelihood of success” in prevailing against Telegram, which was accused of breaking investor protection laws when it sold $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency. Dubai-based Telegram and other startups pushed forward with lucrative, unregulated fundraisings despite the SEC’s warnings in 2017 that they were subject to rules restricting how companies raise capital.

• The SEC is extending the filing periods during which public companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic are eligible for a 45-day extension to file certain financial disclosures. The agency on March 4 granted an extension on filing deadlines on or prior to April 30. The latest relief extends deadlines to July 1. “The guidance encourages timely reporting while recognizing that it may be difficult to assess or predict with precision the broad effects of Covid-19 on industries or individual companies,” the regulator said.
   
• The U.S. says it will allow some importers to delay tariff payments, following calls from business groups and import-dependent industries such as retailers and steel users for the Trump administration to cancel or at least temporarily suspend major tariffs. The tariffs—essentially taxes at the border—have been imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars of annual imports from China, as well as steel and aluminum products from around the world.
   
• Congressional leaders have agreed to impose limits on stock buybacks and dividend payments for airlines and other companies receiving aid under the coronavirus-stimulus package, according to the text of pending legislation circulating on Capitol Hill. The curbs on the ability of certain firms to reward shareholders come after President Trump and congressional Democrats demanded such strings be attached to any funds in the package. The provision was inserted into a $2-trillion bill hammered out over the past few days between the administration and top lawmakers.
   
• Uber Technologies sued the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, escalating a monthslong disagreement over the city’s data-collection efforts. Uber has been sparring with the city’s transportation authority over a rule that requires that it share real-time location data for its dockless scooters.

As millions of U.S. workers pivoted to remote work last week, putting new strains on their computer networks, federal officials warned that hackers smelled blood. But the fallout from coronavirus-related breaches may not become clear for weeks, months or even longer, experts say.

The expected delay highlights how confusion from the pandemic has created long-term security risks that could eat up resources as the economy hurtles toward a recession. “Very well-organized criminal organizations or nation-states—they can wait,” said Nicolas Fischbach, chief technology officer of Forcepoint LLC, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in data protection. “They get to more data. They can learn more about the environment.”

The market for issuing securities backed by commercial mortgages has frozen up, leaving some of the biggest names on Wall Street stuck with billions of dollars of loans that are rapidly deteriorating in value. This market usually enables lenders to owners of offices, hotels and other commercial buildings to unload their debt into a financial market and reduce their exposure. But it has stopped functioning properly since the novel coronavirus pandemic caused financial markets to go into a tailspin.

The malfunctioning of the market for commercial mortgage-backed securities is weighing on recent debt deals. One of the biggest is the $2 billion loan made in February by a bank group led by Citigroup and backed by the MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay resorts and casinos in Las Vegas. The borrower was a venture of Blackstone Group's nontraded real-estate investment trust and an MGM spinoff, which purchased the properties just before the loans were made.

• RBC Seeks Fire-Sale Buyers for Seized Mortgage Debt
• SL Green’s $815 Million Deal to Sell New York City Tower Falls Apart

• The shutdown of movie theaters world-wide due to the coronavirus pandemic has put cinema owners at heightened risk of default if they are unable to reopen in several months or secure a financial lifeline. Securities linked to AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the global market leader with over 1,000 cinemas, have tumbled in value to distressed levels after the company temporarily closed all of its theaters. Independent cinema owners are also staring down looming payments to creditors and landlords.
   
• SoftBank Group dropped Moody’s Investors Service after the credit-ratings firm criticized the Japanese tech giant’s massive share-and-debt buyback plan and downgraded its ratings by two notches. Moody’s questioned the “unexpected size and apparent urgency” of SoftBank’s plan, which proposes up to $41 billion in asset sales to fund repurchases of stocks and bonds.

European regulators are working furiously with the region’s banks to keep its financial system ticking over as Western economies are hit by the coronavirus shutdown. Many of the regulations forged in the meltdown 12 years ago have proved effective, but there is one clear exception: an accounting change pushing banks to write down loans earlier.

Last Friday, the European Central Bank urged lenders to “avoid excessive procyclical effects” when applying the new rule. The Bank of England raised similar concerns and promised more guidance this week.

• The Internal Revenue Service issued guidance filling in many details of the historic delay in this year’s tax-filing and payment deadlines, which have been extended to July 15 from April 15 for many taxpayers due to the coronavirus pandemic. The agency also announced key delays to enforcement actions.

• Retailers are suspending and canceling clothing orders, threatening millions of factory jobs in Asia just as China shows signs of recovering from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. Among the first to be hit by the consumer shutdown in the West are suppliers to the world’s “fast-fashion” giants, like H&M. Their business models depend on being able to get orders from factory floors to retail outlets in a matter of weeks.
   
• The pandemic is taking a growing toll on Italy’s maritime sector as traffic at the country’s ports slows and lockdown efforts undercut trade connections with the rest of the world. In a letter last week to Italy’s minister of infrastructure and transport, the country’s shipowners asked for direct state funding over three years. They also requested an 18-month moratorium on all financial obligations and a year-long exemption on social security payments for vessels under the Italian flag.
   
• Some U.S. hospitals preparing for a shortage of ventilators for Covid-19 patients are modifying oxygen devices usually used for decompression sickness or foot ulcers to assist patients who will need help breathing. One hitch: a small U.S. company that makes the hyperbaric-medicine devices is deluged with orders and can’t fill them.

A job interview that went badly is at the heart of the latest battle between a venerable Japanese company and a foreign activist investor.

Beer maker Kirin Holdings is in a face-off with London-based Independent Franchise Partners, which owns a 2% stake and wants Kirin to focus on alcoholic drinks while getting rid of noncore businesses such as a stake in a cosmetics company. A shareholder vote on the divestment proposal is set for Friday.

Emboldened by changes in corporate governance in Japan, foreign shareholders have had success recently getting share buybacks and higher dividends. SoftBank Group Corp. said Monday it would buy back as much as $18 billion in shares after pressure from New York-based fund manager Elliott Management.
 

• Occidental Petroleum, the largest oil producer in the giant Permian Basin, has ceded to activist investor Carl Icahn’s demands and announced deep spending cuts in a bid to survive the steepest crude-price plunge in decades. The truce with Mr. Icahn, unveiled Wednesday, is the culmination of a monthslong battle that began last year after Occidental outbid Chevron Corp. for Anadarko Petroleum Corp.
   
• Credit Suisse on Wednesday said it docked around 2.2 million Swiss francs ($2.24 million) from former chief executive Tidjane Thiam’s 2019 bonus because of the “significant impact” of last year’s spying scandal on the bank’s reputation. Mr. Thiam was granted 10.7 million francs in salary, bonus and share awards in 2019, down from 12.6 million francs the year before, the bank said.
   
• Groupon said its chief executive and chief operating officer have relinquished their roles, effective immediately.

Silicon Valley’s technology whizzes are mobilized to fight the coronavirus, trying to hack everything from disease modeling to elder care and medical-device manufacturing. Yet it isn’t clear how best to apply the industry’s talents for on-the-fly innovation to a fast-moving pandemic, or whether the U.S.’s wellspring of disruption can make major contributions to solving society’s biggest crisis in decades.

Thousands of volunteers from the tech world have begun pitching in on hundreds of hastily assembled projects over the past two weeks, as the virus ravaged Europe and spread in the U.S. Many are concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area, which locked down before most of the country, leaving thousands of talented techies with spare time to brainstorm coronavirus-related projects.

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Send comments to the Risk & Compliance editor, Jack Hagel, at jack.hagel@wsj.com