Good morning. Public companies notched a victory in a longstanding fight to curb the impact of consultants who influence shareholder votes on topics such as executive pay.

A divided Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 Wednesday to urge the consulting firms—known as proxy advisers—to take more steps to disclose how they craft their shareholder recommendations, issuing a broad warning for proxy advisers that convey incorrect information. The SEC also voted to issue new guidance to mutual-fund managers that outlines steps they should consider if they become aware of potential factual errors or weaknesses in analysis from a proxy adviser.

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The moves target Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co., two firms which dominate the industry with 97% market share. Proxy advisers say institutional investors rely on their research and recommendations to make informed decisions about how to vote their clients’ shares. They have disputed claims about inaccuracies in their recommendations.

The SEC’s two Democratic members, Robert Jackson and Allison Lee, dissented, saying the guidance would impose new costs that will exacerbate an already highly concentrated proxy-advisory industry. Mr. Jackson warned the moves could also lead smaller fund managers to stop voting on corporate ballots—boosting the influence of larger investors.

The U.S. designated three Chinese nationals and a related entity as narcotics traffickers, a part of joint actions by several agencies to address the opioid crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday.

The Treasury alleged that Chinese nationals Fujing Zheng and Xiaobing Yan manufactured and sold synthetic opioids to U.S. customers. Mr. Zheng and his father, Guanghua Zheng, who was also blacklisted Wednesday, were indicted last year in Ohio for allegedly manufacturing and shipping opioids to at least 37 U.S. states and 25 countries, the Treasury said. Mr. Yan was indicted in 2017 in Mississippi for manufacturing and distributing controlled substances, according to the Treasury.

Messrs. Zheng and Yan allegedly used bitcoin to launder their proceeds, the Treasury said. Fujing Zheng didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Efforts to reach Mr. Yan and Guanghua Zheng weren't successful.

—Mengqi Sun

• New details about the U.S. sanctions-busting case against Huawei Technologies Co. emerged in court filings in Canada, including about the Chinese telecom giant’s alleged dealings in Iran, Syria and Sudan. The filings also detailed discussions Huawei held with Citigroup Inc. and BNP Paribas about its Iran business. The hundreds of pages of court documents released in Vancouver shed new light on the U.S. case against Huawei and its finance chief, who was arrested in Canada in December at the behest of the U.S. and is fighting extradition.
   
• China said it would place sanctions on any U.S. firm involved in a planned $8 billion sale of advanced jet fighters to Taiwan, in retaliation against what it describes as Washington’s attempt to undermine Chinese national security. Beijing’s countermeasure against the proposed sale of 66 F-16V fighters isn’t expected to have much impact on the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Corp., but it could complicate efforts to resolve the U.S.-China trade dispute.
   
• Car makers are caught in the crossfire between the Trump administration and California over U.S. tailpipe-emissions rules, leading them down different paths in how to respond to the standoff. The White House last year proposed easing the Obama-era fuel economy standards. But the rollback pushed by the Trump administration is so extensive that car companies are worried it will set off a protracted legal battle with California—the nation’s most populous state and the biggest auto market—and ultimately conclude with manufacturers having to meet two different sets of requirements for selling cars in the U.S.
   
• Insurer Aflac Inc.'s shares slid Wednesday on news reports that a scandal at Japan Post Holdings Co. included improper sales of Aflac products. Last month, Japan Post’s insurance unit said it would look into 183,000 policies sold over the past five years. Media reports Wednesday said Japan Post improperly sold more than 100,000 Aflac policies, in addition to the previously disclosed issue.
   
• Mexican tomato growers reached a last-minute deal with the U.S. Commerce Department that will suspend an antidumping investigation and remove duties on U.S. imports of Mexican tomatoes in exchange for Mexico raising prices and submitting to inspections.
   
• Jumia Technologies AG, the company behind the biggest e-commerce business across Africa, said it has fired employees and suspended others after investigations of improper sales practices. Jumia said it found instances where independent sales agents and sellers worked with employees to profit from what sellers pay to use the online platform and commissions that sales agents earn.                                                                         
• PG&E Corp. conducted an unusual inspection of the power line that sparked the deadliest wildfire in California history just weeks before it failed, a step the utility has said it normally takes only when it suspects a potential safety problem. The disclosure that workers climbed portions of the Caribou-Palermo line last fall, which PG&E noted in a recent court filing, suggests the company had concerns about the condition of its lines before the Camp Fire, which killed 86 people and destroyed the town of Paradise. The Nov. 8 fire is now being investigated by state and local authorities, which could ultimately lead to criminal charges against PG&E and its executives.                                                                                           
• Brazil’s Senate approved measures meant to boost a sluggish economy by simplifying business in a country known for its crippling bureaucracy.  The changes include a fast-track process to open new firms, waivers for some permit requirements and broader acceptance of digital documents, among other things. The package faced opposition from groups fearing a reduction of labor rights and environmental protections, but was saluted by businesses.

Also…

• Freed Iranian Tanker’s Journey to Greece Hits Stumbling Blocks
• U.S. and Venezuela Hold Secret Talks
• South Korea Pulls Out of Information-Sharing Pact With Japan

As students prepare to go back to school, hackers aren’t far behind. Dozens of schools have disclosed data breaches and other cybersecurity incidents in recent months, sometimes resulting in closures and service disruptions.

Cyberattacks targeting schools aren’t a new problem. But they are wreaking more damage as criminals use ransomware to lock down equipment until a demand is paid, according to cybersecurity experts. That is prompting state governments to get more involved in helping affected school districts and working on prevention efforts.

“School districts are increasingly under attack, and they haven’t spent the time, money and effort on security,” said Mark Houpt, chief information security officer at DataBank Ltd., a data-center provider that supplies cloud storage and other information-technology services to K-12 schools, among others.

• Federal deficits are projected to grow much more than expected over the next decade thanks to the two-year budget agreement lawmakers and the White House struck last month, the Congressional Budget Office said. The agency increased its forecasts for deficits over the next decade by $809 billion, to $12.2 trillion, in updated budget projections released.
   
• Vast fires, many of them set by loggers, are ravaging the Amazon at a rate not seen in years, at a time when there is international pushback against President Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policies. The number of forest fires in Brazil, mainly across the Amazon, has soared 84% this year compared with the same period last year, the highest since records began in 2013, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.

This week, a bogus post warning of an Instagram privacy change went viral, sparking panic among the app’s users, including major celebrities and politicians. According to the post, Instagram would make users’ activity on the app public, unless they posted their nonconsent.

American singer-songwriter Pink’s retaliatory post, captioned “Better safe than sorry, even if it is a hoax,” garnered over 91,500 likes in a mere 18 hours. The threat was a hoax, as confirmed by a spokesperson for Instagram, one of Facebook Inc.’s brands.

• Amazon.com Inc. is seeking vendors in Israel to bolster its service in the country, a move that comes as the e-commerce company prepares to launch a local-language website to tap the fast-growing Middle East market. The company reached out to businesses in Israel to sell and directly deliver locally via its platform, according to a company statement.
   
• Companies might be better off buying divested assets than divesting themselves. Purchases of divested assets led to higher returns than divesting parts of businesses in the first half of the year globally, according to a report from advisory firm Willis Towers Watson.

Also...

• Retail Divide Widens as Shoppers Seek Value and Convenience

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