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The Morning Risk Report: SEC Considers Changes to Trump-Era Rules
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Hester Peirce testifying on Capitol Hill in 2017. Today an SEC commissioner, she and Elad Roisman, both Republicans, criticized a revisiting of some Trump-era regulations.
PHOTO: JOSHUA ROBERTS/REUTERS
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it would consider changes to regulations passed under the Trump administration, a move that drew criticism from its Republican commissioners.
Among the regulations that the SEC plans to revisit are amendments to its whistleblower award program and a rule requiring oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments. Both rules were passed late last year over opposition by the agency’s Democrats.
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The decision to revisit the rules is part of the SEC’s latest regulatory agenda, released on Friday. In addition to reviewing a number of Trump-era rules, the agency said it would draft rules on environmental, social and governance-related investing, and on disclosures by companies on cybersecurity risks.
On Monday, the SEC’s two Republican commissioners criticized the agenda for reopening the rule-making process on already completed regulations, and for not tackling other issues, like clarifying the agency’s oversight of digital assets.
“Perhaps the absence of these rules is attributable to the regrettable decision to spend our scarce resources to undo a number of rules the commission just adopted,” commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman said.
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Renee Jones will serve as the SEC’s top staff regulator of public companies.
PHOTO: ADAM DETOUR/BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL
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The Securities and Exchange Commission said it had hired Renee Jones, a Boston College law professor, as its top staff regulator of public companies.
Ms. Jones will oversee a division of more than 400 lawyers and accountants who draft rules for companies raising capital and disclosing material news and events to shareholders. The division has a leading role in drafting a planned rule proposal that would require public companies to reveal more about the risks and impacts of climate change on their business.
Ms. Jones, 56 years old, has written critically about large, private companies known as unicorns, which are valued at over $1 billion before going public. The SEC has over the past decade made it easier for private companies to raise capital, which largely exempts them from the agency’s oversight.
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Lordstown Motors Corp. said its chief executive and top financial leader have resigned, decisions that come amid a new report from a board committee that says some aspects of disclosures it made about truck preorders were inaccurate. The company, which plans to build electric pickup trucks at a former General Motors Co. assembly plant in Ohio, said that a board committee found some disclosures made about preorders for its forthcoming electric truck, the Endurance, to be inaccurate in certain respects, partially confirming claims outlined in a March report by short-seller Hindenburg Research.
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Centene Corp. said it settled claims from Ohio and Mississippi related to its pharmacy-benefit billing practices, and it is setting aside $1.1 billion to resolve similar issues with other states. The big managed-care company said it would pay about $88 million to Ohio and $55 million to Mississippi. Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, sued the company in March, alleging that it had misled the state’s Medicaid program about its pharmacy-related costs, resulting in overpayments by the state.
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The trial of a former University of Tennessee scientist accused of concealing his work in China is highlighting the difficulties federal agents have had relying on universities to police international collaborations. The case against Anming Hu went to the jury Monday. As the trial unfolded last week in federal court here, testimony showed university employees fumbling with unclear disclosure policies and struggling to explain to Mr. Hu the required paperwork and what constituted a conflict of interest.
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Americans Michael Taylor and Peter Taylor pleaded guilty to the charge of helping former Nissan Motor Co. chief Carlos Ghosn escape Japan in a box—an idea that Japanese prosecutors said Mr. Ghosn himself suggested. After the father-and-son defendants were brought into the Tokyo District Court on Monday in handcuffs, prosecutors laid out their most detailed public description yet of the getaway plan that brought Mr. Ghosn to Lebanon at the end of 2019.
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The Justice Department will bolster its procedures for obtaining records from members of Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Monday, after it emerged that the agency during the Trump administration secretly seized data on the communications of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.
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Delta Airlines doubled its total debt to around $35 billion.
PHOTO: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Before the pandemic, U.S. companies were borrowing heavily at low interest rates. When Covid-19 lockdowns triggered a recession, they didn’t pull back. They borrowed even more and soon paid even less.
The question now is whether companies have merely delayed a reckoning. Debt-laden companies withstood last year’s recession far better than many had feared. But it was in many ways a unique shock to the economy, more akin to a natural disaster than a typical recession. For all their current enthusiasm, many CFOs and investors acknowledge that businesses could still be punished in a normal downturn that raises borrowing costs for a longer period and does more serious damage to household finances.
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A solar facility in Colorado is shown with an Xcel Energy coal-fired power plant in the background. The utility has plans to increase its wind and solar power.
PHOTO: RICK WILKING/REUTERS
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Companies are racking up hefty bills as they invest in new facilities and products to reduce emissions or meet other targets, hoping for a payoff down the road.
Businesses increasingly are coming under pressure from investors, lawmakers and regulators who demand more details on their spending plans and the progress they are making to achieve their environmental, social and governance goals.
As a result, car manufacturers such as General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are boosting investments in electric vehicles to reduce emissions, while utilities including Xcel Energy Inc. and CenterPoint Energy Inc. are producing more renewable power.
Those investments present challenges for chief financial officers overseeing companies’ capital spending plans.
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A Singapore Airlines Airbus A330-300 takes off behind a Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner at Changi Airport in Singapore. PHOTO: EDGAR SU/REUTERS
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The U.S. and the European Union are near to a deal that would suspend their trade dispute over government subsidies to Boeing Co. and Airbus, in a sign of easing trade tensions, a top EU official said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday she is “very positive and convinced” a deal would be announced later in the day. “It is in our common interest to solve it,” she said of the dispute.
Ms. von der Leyen was scheduled to meet Tuesday with President Biden, who is in Brussels to consult with allies. Defusing the aircraft trade fight would mark a tangible achievement for his week of European diplomacy.
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Salesforce.com is inviting fully vaccinated workers who have disclosed their status to come back to offices in places such as San Francisco.
PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Companies are stepping up the pressure on workers to get vaccinated—not necessarily with mandates, but with strong nudges.
For months, many employers have attempted to coax workers into receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. Companies dangled cash, time off and other prizes to encourage vaccinations. Executives made personal appeals in town-hall meetings and internal memos.
Now, some of those efforts are taking a more assertive and urgent tone. While most employers haven’t flat-out ordered staff to get vaccinated, many are asking workers to report their vaccination status or are implementing policies that restrict the activities of unvaccinated workers.
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