Good day. The federal government set off a wave of fear among brokers and buyers when it first imposed disclosure rules for anonymous cash buyers of some of the most expensive homes in Miami and New York City. But three years later, as the government expands the rules and lowers the threshold required for reporting, brokers say the new disclosure rules have had limited impact on the market or buyer behavior, Risk & Compliance Journal’s Samuel Rubenfeld reports. 

Title-insurance companies are now required to report the identity of the purchaser for all residential deals of $300,000 or more that are made in a corporate name and without a mortgage. That is down from the $1 million minimum in Miami and $3 million in New York when the rule went into effect in 2016. The Treasury Department last year also extended the rule to 12 other metro areas, including San Francisco, Dallas and Chicago.

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Information turned over to the Treasury Department is matched against a government database of reports of suspicious financial activity and can be made available to local law-enforcement agencies, but isn’t made public. Some brokers add that after an early sense of alarm, buyers understood that their names and identifying information would be kept confidential, and confidence returned.

“I really don’t think anything has changed,” said Pamela Liebman, president of the Corcoran Group, which has brokers in New York City, the Hamptons and South Florida.

• France, Britain and Germany, defying threats from Washington, are this week executing their plans to set up a special-payments company to secure some trade with Iran and blunt the impact of U.S. sanctions. In the short term, the new company is expected to struggle to achieve even its initial goal of enabling Tehran to import vital food and drugs at affordable prices.
   
• Canada said Tuesday it received a formal request from the U.S. for the extradition of Huawei Technologies Co.’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou.
   
• The last time the U.S. slapped sanctions on a major oil-producing nation, Saudi Arabia backed a coordinated American effort to boost exports and keep global crude supplies in balance. But this time, as the Trump administration moves to embargo Venezuelan oil, the White House’s key Middle Eastern ally won’t be as eager to rush to its aid. 
   
• Closing arguments took place Tuesday in the federal government’s suit against Qualcomm Inc. over patent licensing, the final stage in a trial that could upend a business model vital to the chip maker’s success in the smartphone era.
   
• A new-look Federal Trade Commission saw its first partisan split in a merger case late Monday, with a Republican majority allowing office-supply giant Staples Inc. to acquire office-supply wholesaler Essendant Inc. over Democratic objections that the FTC should do more to stop questionable deals.
   
• PG&E Corp.’s move to file for bankruptcy to deal with massive liabilities from California wildfires will be long and costly—and it may bring little relief from legal troubles stemming from its safety record, according to people getting ready to participate in the case.

Apple Inc. scrambled to fix a bug in its FaceTime video-chat system that lets callers eavesdrop on users of iPhones, iPads and Macs, an embarrassing setback for a company that has touted its commitment to privacy. An Arizona teenager and his mother spent more than a week trying to warn Apple of the bug before news of the glitch blew up on social media Monday.

• The $49 billion purchase of DirecTV was supposed to catalyze AT&T Inc.’s transformation into a media and entertainment giant. Instead, it has become one of the biggest casualties of the rise of Netflix Inc. and other streaming-video services. AT&T is facing the perils of trying to move beyond its telecom roots into a media industry where the balance of power is dramatically shifting. 
   
• Hoping to match China’s success at protecting and promoting homegrown tech titans, India has plans to continue tightening restrictions on Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc., Facebook Inc. and other foreign firms that have come to dominate the country’s budding internet economy.

• Uber Technologies Inc., fresh from disrupting the taxi industry and leaping into food delivery, is devising a new business strategy ahead of its anticipated public offering: ferrying passengers to and from mass-transit systems.
   
• China’s well-heeled shoppers in the fourth quarter splurged on Louis Vuitton, Dior and other luxury brands owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, defying a Chinese economic slowdown and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
   
• U.S. defense executives expect the Pentagon to boost spending further, potentially ending months of uncertainty about the government’s plans that has spooked investors. Lockheed Martin Corp. and other contractors said Tuesday that the White House budget request for fiscal 2020 would likely be in line or surpass previous spending that had already generated record orders for combat jets, missile defense systems and space hardware. 

• Business-software maker SAP SE said Tuesday it will restructure at a cost of nearly $1 billion as it continues to shift toward cloud-based computing. Chief Executive William McDermott said roughly 4,400 employees are likely to be affected, though the company expects its current workforce of about 96,500 to grow by the end of 2019.
   
• 3M Co. lowered its profit outlook for this year, the latest manufacturer to flag slack demand in China for its products. The maker of Post-it Notes and industrial adhesives beat revenue and profit expectations in its fourth quarter, as higher prices and volume offset rising costs due to tariffs and other factors. 
   
• No one knows how many stores the struggling J.C. Penney Co. may shut this year. But landlords aren’t waiting around to find out if theirs will be among the closures. Property owners of vibrant malls are already seeking better-paying tenants, while the less successful ones are considering rent cuts or other incentives if they fear a new anchor tenant would be tough to land, landlords and analysts say.

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