Good morning. Ratings firm Morningstar Inc. is nearing a deal with federal regulators over allegations the firm violated rules in its bond-rating business that prohibit analysts who hand out credit ratings from being involved in sales and marketing for their companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

The potential settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission is an embarrassment for the firm that made its name analyzing mutual funds. Morningstar has made a big push into bond ratings, saying it would improve quality and restore investor trust in the business, whose reputation was damaged in the financial crisis. Terms of the settlement, which could be announced as early as this week, weren’t known.

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The settlement involves Morningstar’s ratings on asset-backed securities, said people familiar with the matter, and the firm could be fined several million dollars. Asset-backed securities are bonds backed by monthly payments on auto loans, student loans, credit cards and the like. It is one of the most lucrative parts of the bond-rating business.

A Morningstar spokesman said “we do not comment on speculation about regulatory matters.” An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

The amount in penalties secured by federal prosecutors from companies accused of violating U.S. antitrust laws more than tripled last year.

Companies agreed to pay $353.8 million in criminal fines to the U.S. Justice Department in the 2019 fiscal year, which ended Sep. 30, compared with $102 million in the prior fiscal year, according to law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. The increase, which reversed a three-year decline, was largely driven by a $100 million fine on StarKist Co. for allegedly conspiring to fix the prices of canned tuna.

While the amount of antitrust fines rose last year, it was far lower than during the first half of the decade, when it peaked in 2015 at $2.9 billion. That’s due in part to the Trump administration’s pivot away from the multinational investigations that often result in much larger fines and toward domestic antitrust cases, according to John Terzaken, a former director of criminal enforcement in the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

“It’s not a question of aggressiveness,” said Mr. Terzaken, now global co-chair of the antitrust and trade regulation division at Simpson Thacher. “It’s a question of focus.”

—Kristin Broughton

Britain, France and Germany took a first step toward reimposing international sanctions on Iran, seeking to pressure Tehran into returning to compliance with the 2015 pact that has limited the country’s nuclear activities. Tuesday’s move by the European powers, which say they remain committed to the 2015 nuclear deal and are seeking to save it, is their first significant response to Tehran’s gradual escalation of its nuclear program in recent months.

The three European countries, which are party to the 2015 agreement, triggered a dispute-settlement mechanism written into the agreement. That mechanism could result in the United Nations Security Council reimposing international sanctions on Iran’s economy, banks and some top officials within two months.

• The U.S. blacklisted two companies, including a China-based firm, that it says are involved in exploiting North Korean workers in violation of United Nations prohibitions against labor exports. The U.N. banned North Korean labor exports as part of an effort to squeeze international revenues it says are used by the Kim regime to retain power and pay for its nuclear-weapons programs. Pyongyang rents out tens of thousands of its citizens as laborers to overseas markets, a practice human-rights groups say is modern-day slavery.
   
• A New York state appeals court ordered a retrial in a 2019 jury case that would have seen hedge-fund firm Touradji Capital Management pay roughly $91 million to two former employees. The decision vacates the $91 million judgment and extends what has already been a decadelong battle between commodities trader Paul Touradji and two of his former portfolio managers, Gentry Beach and Robert Vollero, over compensation they said they were owed.
   
• Delaware’s attorney general has settled an investigation of financial services company Horace Mann Educators Corp. and a former representative over practices in retirement plans for teachers. The settlement, which involves $500,000 in fines and the reimbursement of costs including annuity fees to as many as 157 educators, comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York state regulators have launched investigations of companies in the 403(b) retirement-savings market.

New York Fed leader John Williams said cultural issues that lead to bad behavior on Wall Street are still an issue.

“When we talk about company culture in the context of financial services, the first thing that comes to mind is the risky, unethical, and sometimes criminal behavior in the banking industry, particularly during the financial crisis,” Mr. Williams said in the text of a speech to be given at an event in London.

• Iranian authorities said they arrested a number of individuals in connection with the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner last week that killed 176 people, as public outrage and calls for accountability grow. Iranian officials said over the weekend that its military shot down the Boeing 737-800 plane by mistake, after denying responsibility for days.
   
• President Trump’s trade war with Beijing reduced the U.S. trade deficit with China last year, although Chinese manufacturers still export far more to the U.S. than vice versa. China’s widening surplus had provided ready ammunition to the Trump administration as it placed round after round of tariffs on the country’s goods to get Beijing to correct what it called unfair trade practices.
   
• Wall Street is growing more nervous about the fate of the proposed merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint, as lawyers for the companies prepare to make final arguments Wednesday in defense of their deal. Shares of Sprint are trading at a more than 40% discount to the value of T-Mobile’s proposed all-stock deal, which is now worth about $34 billion after steady gains in T-Mobile’s market value. It is the widest gap since the merger of the two cellular providers was struck nearly two years ago.

The U.S. and China are about to declare a pause in their trade war by signing an initial pact this week, but a continuing battle over technology is bound to keep relations between the two superpowers on edge.

The Trump administration’s immediate focus is tightening restrictions on Huawei Technologies, the giant Chinese telecommunications company that the White House and Congress view as a national-security threat. The Commerce Department recently sent regulations to the Office of Management and Budget that would largely eliminate a loophole that allowed U.S. companies to sell to Huawei from their overseas facilities, people familiar with the matter said.

Some lawmakers and national-security experts have said Huawei’s equipment would allow Chinese leaders to spy on Americans, which the company has regularly denied. A Huawei spokesman didn’t return a request for comment on the potential restrictions.

• Senators Urge $1 Billion Plan to Loosen China’s Grip on 5G

• The escalation of a long-running encryption conflict between the Justice Department and Apple has puzzled security experts who say that new hacking tools have made it possible to gain access to many of the company’s devices in criminal investigations. The escalation of a long-running encryption conflict between the Justice Department and Apple has puzzled security experts who say that new hacking tools have made it possible to gain access to many of the company’s devices in criminal investigations.
   
• Microsoft released a patch to fix a software vulnerability in its Windows operating system that could allow hackers to breach or surveil targeted computer networks, after the National Security Agency detected the flaw. U.S. government officials described the vulnerability in Windows 10—Microsoft’s most popular operating system—as especially severe and one that Microsoft customers should work to fix immediately by updating their systems.
   
• Google plans to restrict the use of third-party cookies in its Chrome internet browser, a move it says is aimed at bolstering users’ privacy while they visit websites. The Alphabet unit has been signaling for months that it had interest in adding more controls on the small data files that help website operators, and potentially other entities including advertisers, gain information about visitors. 
   
• An Indian court ordered Facebook’s WhatsApp and Google to preserve data connected to an attack on a university campus earlier this month in the latest attempt by authorities in the country to wrangle more control over the messaging and search giants. WhatsApp has consistently said that messages exchanged on its platform are encrypted, unreadable in transit, and can’t be seen by authorities or WhatsApp itself.

BlackRock said it would take a tougher stance against corporations that aren’t providing a full accounting of environmental risks, part of a slew of moves by the investment giant to show it is doing more to address investment challenges posed by climate change.

Among the moves, BlackRock said it would be increasingly disposed to vote against management and boards if companies don’t disclose climate change risks and plans in line with key industry standards.

BlackRock last week said it had joined Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest group of investors by assets pressuring companies to act on climate change, following criticism that the money manager hasn’t done enough to move the needle.

• Wells Fargo’s fourth-quarter profit plunged, hurt by costs related to its long-running fake-account scandal and flagging business lines. The lender said it took a $1.5 billion charge for costs stemming from the scandal that has dogged it since 2016, fueling a 53% profit drop. The bank has said it is in talks to settle a joint Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission probe into the matter.
   
• Amazon’s clampdown on FedEx is over. The online retailer has notified its third-party merchants that they could once again use FedEx’s Ground network to ship orders placed under Amazon’s Prime membership program, nearly a month after imposing a ban on the service because of performance issues. The move ends a standoff between Amazon and onetime shipping partner FedEx, whose Ground network was blocked for the final rush before Christmas and several weeks thereafter.

Companies increasingly are using acquisitions to buy new technological skills as a way of boosting their top-line growth, according to a report by Bain & Co. Mergers and acquisitions often fall into two categories. In the first, which Bain calls “scope deals,” companies seek new capabilities, access to new markets or other complementary services. In the second, which the consulting firm terms “scale deals,” companies aim to increase their market share in a certain industry.

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