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The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Places Sanctions on Venezuela’s State Gold-Mining Company
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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro hands a replica of the sword of Simón Bolivar to workers at a hydroelectric plant on Saturday, in an image released by the presidency. PHOTO: HO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Hello. The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned gold-mining company and the company’s president on Tuesday, and President Trump later said the U.S. could be “a lot tougher” on the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday blacklisted CVG Compania General de Mineria de Venezuela CA, or Minerven, the Venezuelan state-run ferrous metals mining company, and the company’s president, Adrian Antonio Perdomo Mata, freezing any assets they have within U.S. territories and prohibiting any dealings with them.
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The U.S. said the gold operations have been another way the Maduro government has tapped the state’s resources for personal gain and to launder proceeds from corruption, drug trafficking and other illicit operations.
The move was the latest in a series of actions by the U.S. designed to cut off critical income streams for Mr. Maduro, whom the Trump administration calls an illegitimate leader.
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One-Third of New Directors List Risk Oversight as an Area of Expertise
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Most big companies last year added at least one new independent director to their boards, replacing directors who hit age limits or term limits, according to a recent report from Ernst & Young.
Seventy-one percent of Fortune 100 companies added new directors in 2018, up from 55% a year earlier, according to the report and data provided by EY. The increase is largely due to ongoing efforts by boards to refresh and diversify their roster of directors, said Stephen Klemash, leader in the Americas for EY’s Center for Board Matters.
In proxy statements filed last year, about one-third of new directors listed risk oversight as one of their primary areas of expertise. That’s less than other areas, such as corporate accounting and international business, which were cited as areas of expertise by about half of directors.
Asked whether companies are recruiting enough risk experts to their boards, Mr. Klemash said risk management is part of the job for most C-Suite executives, even if it isn't their sole responsibility. “I would like to think that anyone who has directly moved to the board has had some experience—if not significant experience—with overall risk management,” he said.
—Kristin Broughton
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The new restrictions on Facebook’s ad targeting were part of a settlement with the National Fair Housing Allliance and others. PHOTO: RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Facebook Inc. is removing age, gender and ZIP Code targeting for housing, employment and credit-related ads as part of a settlement with advocacy groups and other plaintiffs. The new actions—and just under $5 million in payments—settle five discrimination lawsuits filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Communications Workers of America and others, the company said.
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Google plans to ask all Android smartphone users in Europe whether they want to switch to competing search engines or web browsers, one of two new concessions the search giant is offering to stave off complaints—and potential fines—from European Union antitrust regulators.
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The president of the Japanese Olympic Committee said he would step down, two months after French authorities said they were investigating whether he sanctioned bribes to help Tokyo win the 2020 Olympic Games.
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A group of music publishers representing the songwriters of hits from Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Drake, Lady Gaga and others is suing Peloton Interactive Inc. for copyright infringement, alleging the maker of video-streaming stationary exercise bikes used over 1,000 musical works without permission.
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Federal investigators and lawmakers are asking the same question about Boeing Co.’s 737 MAX jet: Did U.S. safety regulators rigorously follow longstanding engineering and design standards in approving a suspect stall-prevention feature?
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Bayer faces lawsuits from about 11,200 farmers, home gardeners and landscapers claiming its glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Roundup, cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers. PHOTO: HAVEN DALEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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A jury found that a man developed cancer from exposure to Roundup weedkiller he used in his yard, in the second case to go to trial over the alleged harms of the popular Bayer AG product. The six-person jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco now is set to begin hearing evidence to separately weigh whether Bayer’s Monsanto unit should be held liable, a decision that could bring substantial financial damages against the company.
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A sheet of paper with informations concerning a cyber attack are pictured on a window of the headquarters of Norsk Hydro in Oslo. PHOTO: TERJE PEDERSEN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Norsk Hydro AS said it suffered a ransomware cyberattack Tuesday that crippled computers and production at the aluminum and energy giant. The Norwegian company, whose business includes mining, smelting and renewable-energy generation, said the virus had been isolated to keep it from spreading further internally, though it was uncertain when operations would return to normal.
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A visitor at the National Portrait Gallery in London earlier this month. PHOTO: TOLGA AKMEN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Britain’s National Portrait Gallery won’t proceed with a £1 million ($1.3 million) pledge from a charitable organization overseen by some members of the Sackler family, the latest crack in a philanthropic image cultivated by the owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP that is facing increasing scrutiny over the company’s role in the U.S.’s opioid crisis.
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Shares of MercadoLibre closed at an all-time high on Wednesday. The company plans to spend $2 billion on operations and services this year. PHOTO: NACHO DOCE/REUTERS
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MercadoLibre Inc. is attempting to become the Amazon.com Inc. of Latin America, but first it will need to keep the e-commerce giant at bay. And that will come at a cost.
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Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is going deeper into the e-commerce business, for the first time selling to its users products they see on the photo-heavy social network’s feeds. The new initiative—at first limited to 20 brands, including Adidas and Prada, is a cautious step toward competing against the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. for online shoppers.
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DSW Inc. said Tuesday it is changing its name to Designer Brands and will add more of its own products on store shelves in a pivot from solely selling other designers’ shoes and accessories.
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Alphabet Inc.’s Google unveiled a new service called Stadia that lets players stream videogames from the cloud without needing pricey hardware—an elusive feat that could change the way people buy and play games.
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Stock exchanges, such as the Nasdaq and NYSE, have joined lobbying and advocacy groups in mounting a well-funded offensive against the proxy-advisory industry. PHOTO: MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Companies want the firms that advise shareholders on proxy proposals to face government oversight of their activities, a wish securities regulators are expected to act on as early as this spring. The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to propose the first U.S. rules on proxy-advice companies following an organized campaign by public companies that think proxy-advisory firms have too much sway over shareholder proposals.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev SA plans to name Marty Barrington, the former chairman and chief executive of Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc., as its new chairman, elevating him from his current seat on the brewer’s board.
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Fox Corp., which began trading as a stand-alone company Tuesday following a spinoff from 21st Century Fox, named Paul Ryan, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to its board.
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Tim Armstrong, the former leader of AOL, is walking away with more than $60 million as he leaves Verizon Communications Inc., which recently wrote down half the value of the internet business he led.
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Three senior Warner Bros. executives will oversee operations at the television and film studio in the wake of Kevin Tsujihara’s resignation Monday after an investigation into a relationship he had with an actress several years ago. Mr. Tsujihara’s resignation comes two weeks after he won an expanded role under a restructuring at AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia unit.
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PricewaterhouseCoopers and other U.S. audit firms must soon begin filing revamped. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
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Coming soon: More insights for investors about the biggest concerns lurking in their companies’ financial results.
Auditors are gearing up to revamp and expand the yearly letter in which they bless a company’s financial statements. Starting later this year, those audit reports must tell investors more about what an auditor found most difficult or challenging when scrutinizing a company’s books.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board adopted the changes—the most substantial since the 1940s—in 2017. Auditors are required to submit expanded reports starting June 30, for bigger companies whose fiscal years end then; the rule kicks in for smaller companies in 2021.
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The White House is pushing for ways to draw more women into the workforce. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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The White House in a new report highlighted the strength of the labor-force participation rate and pushed for policies to encourage more people to work as millions of baby boomers retire. From 2015 through 2018, the labor-force participation rate, or share of Americans working or seeking work, stabilized around 63%, defying expectations for declines as the population ages.
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