Good morning. Western Union was already focused on expanding its digital business when the pandemic shut down some of its physical locations and forced many of its employees to work remotely. The shutdown led to a surge of new clients to the money-transfer giant’s digital platforms as people avoided going to retail locations and countries around the world issued stay-at-home orders, Tyler Hand, Western Union’s chief compliance officer, tells Risk & Compliance Journal’s Mengqi Sun.

The pandemic also meant the Denver-based company—which had to retain an independent compliance auditor for three years as part of a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly failing to implement an effective antifraud program and supervise third-party agents—had to quickly shift its compliance controls to monitor for Covid-related frauds, Mr. Hand says. Those frauds included internet-purchase scams involving face masks, purported Covid-testing kits and ventilators, he says.

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Separately, Risk & Compliance Journal’s Dylan Tokar reports that the coronavirus pandemic has created a legal minefield for companies.

Massive disruptions have forced compliance officers to vet new suppliers and revamp internal safeguards, while travel restrictions and remote working have complicated investigations and increased exposure to cyberattacks. Compliance chiefs must also help businesses navigate the risks and complex requirements of relief programs and the mechanics of an eventual return to the office—all while continuing to meet the ever-shifting expectations of regulators and law-enforcement agencies.

Join us on Oct. 8 for the WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum, where risk managers, compliance officers and legal professionals will provide insights on how their roles are changing as companies grapple with remote workforces, digitization and an amplified focus on corporate ethics. To register, click here.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved amendments to the rules governing monetary awards made to whistleblowers who voluntarily report potential wrongdoing. The long-anticipated vote, which clarifies the regulator’s discretion in determining award amounts, could change how the SEC pays out some of its largest whistleblower awards, lawyers say.

The regulator says the new rules would add clarity to its decade-old whistleblower program and bring efficiency and transparency to the award determination process, according to a statement published Wednesday. But some whistleblower lawyers say the changes could dissuade tipsters from coming forward.

• JPMorgan Chase is nearing an agreement with federal prosecutors and regulators to settle civil and criminal charges that its traders rigged futures and securities markets, people familiar with the matter said. The bank would pay about $1 billion to wrap up several investigations into whether its trading desks manipulated prices for metals and Treasury securities, one of the people said.
   
• The Justice Department submitted a proposal to Congress to curb longstanding legal protections for internet companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter and force them to shoulder more responsibility for managing content on their sites. The proposal advances two main goals the Trump administration and the department outlined in June: encouraging online platforms to actively address illicit conduct and manage content on their sites in fair and consistent ways.
   
• Eric Trump and others who have done work for the Trump Organization must sit for depositions by next month as part of a civil fraud investigation conducted by the New York attorney general, a state court judge ruled.
   
• Two Obama administration officials raised concerns to the White House in 2015 about Hunter Biden serving on the board of a Ukrainian natural-gas company while his father, then Vice President Joe Biden, led U.S. policy efforts toward the country, a Senate investigation by Republicans concluded.

Australia’s second-largest bank said it would pay a $920 million penalty for breaches that included a failure to detect transfers that may have been used to facilitate child exploitation in Asia. The bank also said it had failed to report more than 19.5 million international transfers and didn’t keep records relating to the origin of some of them. The proposed agreement with the government’s financial-intelligence agency is subject to court approval.

• Companies no longer just have to stay on the right side of the law to be ethical. There are ethical minefields everywhere. As a result, it has never been more important for companies to rethink their ethics programs and explicitly design them so they take into account all the risks that could arise from being judged unethical by any one of the company’s numerous stakeholders, Alison Taylor, the executive director of Ethical Systems, writes for The Wall Street Journal.
   
• The Securities and Exchange Commission raised the bar for investors to submit proposals for a vote at companies’ annual meetings, a win for executives who have bristled at shareholder efforts to influence policies on climate change and other issues.
   
• Pilgrim’s Pride said Jayson Penn, its president and chief executive put on leave in June after the U.S. Justice Department indicted him on charges of conspiring to fix chicken prices, has exited the company, effective Wednesday.
   
• Wells Fargo Chief Executive Charlie Scharf apologized in a letter to employees for his remarks related to recruiting Black talent.

TikTok asked a federal judge to stop the Trump administration from imposing a ban on the popular video-sharing app over national-security concerns. In a court-filed injunction request, TikTok lawyers told a D.C. district court judge that the U.S. government’s proposed ban violates constitutional provisions for free speech and due process. The Trump administration contends that the data TikTok collects from U.S. users could be shared with the Chinese government. TikTok has said it would never hand over such data.

Chinese state media, meanwhile, took turns denouncing a White House-approved plan to turn TikTok into a U.S.-based company, casting more doubt over the fate of the Chinese-owned app that needs nods from both Beijing and Washington to avoid a ban in the U.S.

• Prosecutors abruptly moved to drop criminal charges against a visiting Chinese scientist at the University of Virginia who had been arrested last month on allegations of stealing trade secrets from his professor, after the university acknowledged the scientist was authorized to access some of the material.

Talks between electric-truck maker Nikola and several potential partners, including BP, to build hydrogen-refueling stations stalled following allegations the company had misled investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The setback is the first outward indication that the controversy is impacting the startup’s ability to execute its business plan.

Nikola executives felt they were making progress toward reaching an agreement with at least one major energy company when short seller Hindenburg Research released a critical report, which cast doubt on the company and its statements about the readiness of its technology, the people said.

• How Nikola Stock Got Torched by a Short Seller

WeWork is selling control of its China business, the latest sign that the company is abandoning its former rapid growth approach and looking to reduce risk.

Four leading U.S. government health officials told a Senate hearing they wouldn’t hesitate to get a Covid-19 vaccine if one is cleared by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, along with Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brett Giroir, said they trusted the FDA to evaluate a vaccine with great scientific precision, even as the FDA is under pressure from the White House to approve a vaccine quickly.