Good morning. Federal investigators are probing the telecommunications executive facing fraud allegations from BlackRock’s HPS Investment Partners and other lenders, according to people familiar with the matter.

• Brooklyn-led: The criminal investigation, which is being led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, centers on Bankim Brahmbhatt and his business activities, the people said. It couldn’t be determined when the inquiry began or if it would result in any charges.
   
• Fabricating loan collateral: In August, lenders accused Brahmbhatt, the owner of little-known telecom-services companies Broadband Telecom and Bridgevoice, of fabricating accounts receivable that were supposed to be used as loan collateral. The lenders have filed multiple lawsuits, alleging Brahmbhatt’s companies owe them more than $500 million. An attorney for Brahmbhatt had disputed the lenders’ allegations.
   
• Vulnerable debt: The suits center on a kind of debt deal known as asset-based finance, in which the borrower posts as collateral a stream of revenue generated by specified businesses, equipment or customer receivables. This corner of the debt market has grown significantly along with the rest of the private-credit industry, and the Brahmbhatt episode has been one of several recent flashpoints that have raised concerns that credit investors might be exposed to additional losses.
   
• Hundreds of millions in losses: HPS and France’s BNP Paribas have collectively written off hundreds of millions in losses tied to the asset-backed loan to Brahmbhatt’s companies, people familiar with the matter said. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, bought credit giant HPS earlier this year as part of an acquisition spree to build out its footprint in private-asset investing. HPS began lending to at least one financing arm affiliated with Brahmbhatt’s telecom companies in September 2020.

U.S. extends Lukoil sanctions waivers as Europe scrambles ahead of deadline.

The U.S. extended waivers related to sanctioned Russian oil company Lukoil, as European countries rush to respond ahead of the deadline to wind down transactions and operations with the energy multinational, Risk Journal reports.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued four general licenses allowing limited operations of Lukoil’s Bulgarian operations through April 2026 and retail service stations outside Russia through mid-December 2025. Two other GLs that don’t specify a closing date cover projects in Kazakhstan involving both Rosneft and Lukoil, while also authorizing negotiations for the sale of Lukoil International GmbH in Austria.

Also Friday, the United Kingdom separately issued a general license allowing continued business operations with Lukoil’s Bulgarian subsidiaries until Feb. 14, 2026.

SEC to largely bow out of shareholder proposal fights.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said it intends to largely stay out of contentious fights on shareholder proposals in the coming year, citing the burden of trying to referee the process, Richard Vanderford reports for Risk Journal.

The SEC on Monday said it would largely refrain from responding to requests for what are called no-action letters, leaving it to publicly traded companies to decide what proposals to exclude from proxy statements.

The agency said it had a backlog of work because of the government shutdown, adding its opinions on shareholder proposals are informational only. The proposal process has in recent years become a way for activists from the left, and increasingly the right, to inject politics into the corporate sphere.

• Switzerland’s financial regulator listed mortgage debt, potential information technology failures and climate transition costs as among the greatest risks for the country’s financial firms in an annual report.
   
• The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country’s central bank and financial regulator, proposed new rules requiring financial institutions to manage risks from using artificial intelligence, including generative AI and AI agents, Risk Journal reports.

Dragonfly’s annual geopolitical assessment explores the key trends and risks businesses should expect to face in 2026, including major flashpoints for armed conflict, the outlook for rivalry and competition among the great world powers, and the effect elections could have on regional and global security alliances.

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Security Council expected to back Trump’s plan for postwar Gaza.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to back President Trump’s Middle East peace plan on Monday after a flurry of behind-the-scenes diplomacy by top Trump officials and U.S. allies.

The draft resolution forms the central plank of the Trump administration’s next steps to implement a lasting peace in Gaza following the two-year Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. expects the resolution to pass, according to two U.S. officials, who anticipate that both Russia and China will abstain rather than veto the measure.

The plan would create a legal mandate for an international stabilization force and lay the groundwork for a new transitional government in Gaza through a “Board of Peace” that would initially oversee Gaza’s reconstruction.

• Federal Reserve officials face a challenge resolving differences over how to set interest rates with little new economic data to guide tricky judgment calls. Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson offered a case study in the central bank’s predicament on Monday, acknowledging the risk of stubborn inflation and weaker employment conditions—dueling threats that call for opposing prescriptions.
   
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described an explosion on the country’s rail network near the Ukraine border as an “unprecedented act of sabotage,” casting it among a string of suspected attacks targeting European infrastructure in recent months.
   
• President Trump said Monday that the U.S. would sell stealthy F-35 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia, announcing his decision the day before he meets at the White House with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
   
• Signs are already pointing to the shakiness of the trade detente President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping struck in late October. Both rivals are intensifying their efforts to reduce their vulnerabilities, and there are indications that some commitments under the deal might not be fulfilled. China, for example, has bought just a tiny share of the soybeans the U.S. says it had agreed to purchase by January.

• President Trump said he would sign legislation to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, one day after he abandoned his longstanding opposition to the measure.
   
• New York state officials and Wall Street executives are teaming up to avoid a federal takeover of New York City, hoping to make the case to President Trump that a surge in law enforcement would be bad for business.
   
• Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook’s lawyer on Monday provided the first detailed defense of her mortgage applications, arguing that apparent discrepancies in loan documents were either accurate at the time or an “inadvertent notation” that couldn’t constitute fraud given other disclosures to her lenders.
   
• French oil and gas major TotalEnergies is ramping up its bet on electricity with a $6 billion investment in power plants across Europe, expanding a strategy that has set it apart from rivals focused on pumping more fossil fuels.
   
• David Richardson, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, resigned Monday after about seven months in the role.

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