Good morning. The U.S. is set to completely walk back its implementation of the so-called 50% rule for one year in a reprieve for companies worldwide, after initial confusion about whether the pause would apply to Chinese companies only, Risk Journal reports.

• Incoming guidance: The Commerce Department is set to publish guidance in the federal register on Wednesday that would push back the rule’s effective date to Nov. 9, 2026 for businesses across the globe. The rule, had it gone forward, would have vastly expanded the U.S. export-control blacklist by including affiliates of companies that had already been targeted.
   
• Official confirmation: The change was expected to affect scores of Chinese firms, and the Trump administration agreed to pause the rule in its trade negotiations with Beijing. Until now, though, it had only communicated details via a White House handout and in an Oct. 30 Fox News television appearance by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Experts who spoke with Risk Journal said they were waiting to see whether the rule would only apply to Chinese businesses.
   
• Sigh of relief: The walkback likely has export compliance professionals breathing a sigh of relief, as many were struggling to get their businesses in line with the rule after its sudden announcement in late September. The regulation proved a challenging expansion of the nation’s export-control policies. Rather than cross-checking business partners against a Commerce Department list, businesses would need to conduct additional, costly due diligence to determine whether an entity would be covered by the rule. Experts told Risk Journal that businesses had to deal with contradictory opinions from compliance vendors.
   
• Electronics distributor delisting: The Bureau of Industry and Security, the Commerce Department unit responsible for the implementation and civil enforcement of export controls, also announced that it would remove export restrictions on a China-based subsidiary of Centennial, Colo.-based Arrow Electronics. The subsidiary was blacklisted on Oct. 9 for allegedly facilitating purchases of U.S.-origin electronic components found in drones operated by Houthi militants and other Iranian proxies.

Millicom to pay $118 million for bribing Guatemalan officials.

Telecommunications company Millicom is set to pay $118 million to resolve U.S. Justice Department allegations that it bribed Guatemalan officials, reports Risk Journal’s Max Fillion.

Luxembourg-based Millicom’s Guatemalan subsidiary, Comunicaciones Celulares, or Comcel, agreed to pay a $60 million fine and forfeit $58.2 million under the terms of a two-year deferred prosecution agreement, the company said Monday.

The credit-card rule that powers rewards cards just got broken.

Premium credit-card users are in for a big surprise: Their JPMorgan Chase Sapphire Reserve, and many other rewards cards, could soon be rejected by merchants.

A settlement between Visa and merchants over a 20-year legal battle is crossing for the first time a red line for the credit-card industry by breaking the networks’ rule that forces a store that accepts one Visa credit card to accept all Visa credit cards. 

• The Federal Aviation Administration is limiting business jets and other private flights to some of the country’s largest airports to ease strains on air-traffic personnel during the government shutdown.
   
• China’s Ministry of Commerce suspended restrictions on exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials to the U.S. for a year, while maintaining a ban on exports of dual-use items to U.S. military users, Risk Journal reports.
   
• The Food and Drug Administration said manufacturers should remove black box warnings on hormone-replacement therapy drugs, citing clinical trials showing no association with increased breast cancer risk.

BBC in crisis as Trump threatens $1 billion lawsuit.

President Trump has threatened to file a $ 1 billion lawsuit against the BBC over the way the U.K. state broadcaster edited one of his speeches in a documentary last year.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the controversy, which has plunged the broadcaster into crisis. The apology came a day after BBC Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness said they were leaving the organization following criticism by the White House.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and a group of Democratic senators are demanding the White House answer for higher electric bills they blamed in part on the artificial-intelligence boom driving one of the most expensive infrastructure build-outs in U.S. history.
   
• Corporate tech departments are seeking the expertise of their human-resources counterparts—and the other way around—as businesses across the country sort through the workforce impacts of artificial intelligence.
   
• Syria has joined the U.S.-led mission to defeat Islamic State, U.S. officials said, after President Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met at the White House on Monday.

• A federal appeals court late Sunday denied the Trump administration’s bid to avoid fully funding federal food-assistance benefits for November, a ruling that means the government will have to make the payments within 48 hours unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
   
• Charges say a New York state aide bought a mansion, a condo and a Ferrari thanks to favors from the Chinese government in exchange for influencing policy toward Beijing.
   
• The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a long-shot bid to overturn the landmark 2015 decision that gave same-sex couples the constitutional right to marry.
   
• President Trump pardoned a list of top allies including Rudy Giuliani in connection with efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to the U.S. pardon attorney, Ed Martin.
   
• President Trump threatened to dock the pay of air-traffic controllers who don’t return to work, as flight cancellations and delays spread across the country because of the government shutdown.
   
• The decision by eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus to side with Republicans on a bill ending the government shutdown drew heated condemnations from other members of the party and reopened longstanding divisions on how best to fight back against the president.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

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