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The Morning Risk Report: New Jersey Attorney General Chosen as SEC Enforcement Director
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Gurbir Grewal
PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Good morning. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday said it would tap New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal to lead its efforts to police Wall Street, signaling a change of direction after a previous pick was criticized by progressives.
Mr. Grewal, 48 years old, will become director of the SEC’s enforcement division on July 26, the regulator said. His appointment comes after SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s prior choice for the post, defense attorney Alex Oh, resigned after a few days into her tenure.
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A longtime public servant with experience as a federal and county prosecutor, Mr. Grewal was appointed following criticism from some progressives that the SEC has been too quick in the past to choose lawyers with strong Wall Street ties to police the financial industry.
As New Jersey attorney general, Mr. Grewal oversaw the state’s Bureau of Securities and prosecuted cases related to predatory subprime automobile lending and the overcharging of credit card fees. He also handled cases related to opioids and gun control as well as lawsuits against the Trump administration.
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Second Deutsche Bank Trader Gets Prison Sentence for Spoofing
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A former Deutsche Bank trader convicted of manipulating precious-metals prices was sentenced this week to a year and day in prison.
Cedric Chanu, a 42-year-old French citizen, was convicted of fraud last year after a two-week federal trial in Chicago. The case focused on allegations of spoofing, or submitting misleading bids and offers to a futures exchange as part of a bluffing scheme to manipulate prices.
A former colleague of Chanu's, James Vorley, was convicted in September as a result of the same trial. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. last week handed down the same prison sentence to Vorley.
—Dave Michaels
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Pennsylvania offices of AmeriSource Bergen, one of seven companies on trial over allegations they helped cause an opioid crisis.
PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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As an opioid epidemic raged across the U.S. a decade ago, employees at a major distributor of prescription drugs sent emails joking about addicts, jurors were told Tuesday during opening statements at a Long Island trial seeking to blame the pharmaceutical industry for a wave of opioid addiction.
In one email, a corporate investigator at AmerisourceBergen Corp. circulated a song about “Pillbillies” set to the tune of the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song, describing a man’s journey to Florida to get cheap painkillers.
“Buy some pills. Take a load home. Y’all come back now, y’hear?” the 2011 email ended. The next year, the same employee sent around a parody photo of a Honey Smacks cereal box, altered to say “Killogg’s Smack” with the box’s cartoon character holding a syringe.
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JPMorgan Chase unit Neovest agreed to cease and desist from committing violations, the SEC said.
PHOTO: MARK KAUZLARICH/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The Securities and Exchange Commission said it has charged Neovest Inc., a JPMorgan Chase & Co. unit that provides an electronic-trading platform, for operating as an unregistered broker-dealer.
The commission on Tuesday said this is the first such charge against a provider of an order and execution management system. It said Neovest agreed to pay $2.75 million in penalties, though the company didn’t admit or deny the SEC’s findings.
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Jacob Zuma, who was sentenced for contempt of court, faces other charges relating to corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering.
PHOTO: PHILL MAGAKOE/PRESS POOL
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South Africa’s Constitutional Court sentenced former President Jacob Zuma to 15 months imprisonment for contempt of court Tuesday, after he refused to appear at a government-appointed commission investigating alleged corruption during his nine years in office.
Findings from the commission and other investigations have prompted several multinational companies, including U.S. consulting firm McKinsey & Co., to repay tens of millions of dollars they earned from contracts now believed to be tainted.
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Federal regulators are tightening their oversight of car crashes that involve advanced driver-assistance or automated-driving features, a shift that follows growing concern over the role that systems such as Tesla Inc.’s Autopilot have had in crashes.
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The Biden administration is developing an executive order directing agencies to strengthen oversight of industries that they perceive to be dominated by a small number of companies, a wide-ranging attempt to rein in big business power across the economy, according to people familiar with the plans.
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The man who helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan bowed in apology and told a Tokyo courtroom that Mr. Ghosn decided at the last minute to turn a rehearsal into an actual escape.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday removed a hurdle to the construction of a natural-gas pipeline through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, ruling the pipeline developer could invoke the power of the federal government to take state property needed for the project.
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Led by foreign activist investors, Toshiba shareholders last week voted to oust Osamu Nagayama as the company’s chairman.
PHOTO: TOSHIBA/REUTERS
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When Toshiba Corp.’s shareholders ousted the company’s chairman last week, it was a symbolic instance of foreign activist investors wielding influence in the Tokyo market. But it wasn’t the only one. Activists say they have found companies more receptive to their demands recently, and they expect the Toshiba example to empower them further by showing what can happen to corporate leaders who brush back foreign investors.
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The recent failure of U.S.-based Archegos Capital Management, a family office that made large, risky bets on a handful of stocks, could be a sign of how more investors might get tripped up by overreacting to inflationary risks, the global club of central banks warned on Tuesday. Shocks to financial markets from higher inflation could result from enormous government spending plans and a rapid release of household savings built up during the Covid-19 pandemic, said the Bank for International Settlements.
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Declan Kelly during a Global Citizen event in California in May. He will be succeeded as CEO by Teneo co-founder and COO Paul Keary.
PHOTO: KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES
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Declan Kelly has resigned as chairman and chief executive of global consulting firm Teneo Holdings LLC after reports of drunken misbehavior at a charity event last month.
Mr. Kelly, a go-to adviser for CEOs of major companies such as General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., is handing over the CEO role to Teneo co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Paul Keary, Teneo said. It didn’t name a new chairman.
Mr. Kelly, 52 years old, apologized last week and said he would reduce his responsibilities after getting drunk and behaving inappropriately with people at an event hosted by the charity Global Citizen in early May. Mr. Kelly was drunk and touched women without their consent at the event, the Financial Times and others reported.
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A warehouse worker in a Verve Motion exosuit at an ADUSA Supply Chain distribution center in Schodack, N.Y., in June.
PHOTO: ADUSA SUPPLY CHAIN
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Your next load of groceries may be moved by a modern-day bionic man or woman.
The U.S. supply-chain arm of supermarket-owner Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize NV is expanding its use of a newer type of wearable robotic technology that workers strap on to help ease the strain of lifting heavy boxes all day.
The devices are the latest entry in a distribution sector wrestling with concerns over worker safety and health in warehouse operations that have boomed over the past year as consumers under pandemic lockdowns have turned to ordering goods online.
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