Good morning. Federal regulators have ordered Google to assure employees they are allowed to speak out on political and workplace issues, people familiar with the matter say, as part of a settlement of formal complaints that the search giant punishes those who do just that.

The National Labor Relations Board’s move offers Google an escape hatch from a thorny issue that has roiled the business in recent years. Though Google executives have long bragged about having a workplace culture designed to encourage open debate, current and former employees across the political spectrum have complained they were retaliated against for raising concerns about equality and freedom of speech.

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The NLRB’s settlement comes in response to a pair of complaints about Google’s reaction to workplace dissent. The settlement orders Google to inform current employees that they are free to speak to the media—without having to ask Google higher-ups for permission—on topics such as workplace diversity and compensation, regardless of whether Google views such topics as inappropriate for the workplace.

• Google Pays More Than $1 Billion to Settle French Tax Cases
• Google Subpoenaed for Details on Its Ad Business

The U.S. Justice Department may issue guidance for federal prosecutors to use when companies claim they are unable to pay a proposed criminal fine, a senior official said.

Companies sometimes say they are unable to pay a fine during the final stages of a government investigation, as they are negotiating a settlement agreement with prosecutors.

There are few guidelines for resolving such claims, Matthew Miner, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in prepared remarks delivered at a conference in Houston.

The department is considering ways it can provide its lawyers with better guidance for evaluating inability-to-pay arguments, he added.

The Federal Trade Commission plans to lay out exactly how U.S. antitrust laws apply to big technology companies—an effort intended to guide its own enforcement and highlight potential regulatory gaps, Dylan Tokar reports for Risk & Compliance Journal.

The guidance would help clarify whether limitations exist in current laws that prevent the regulator from policing anticompetitive behavior by the technology sector, a senior FTC official said this week.

The document could serve as a roadmap for lawmakers who have voiced concerns about the dominance of companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc.

• Europe should block Facebook Inc.-backed digital currency Libra and create a public alternative, a senior French official said, staking out a hard line amid broader resistance to the idea from U.S. and international officials. Bruno Le Maire, France’s finance minister, said the Libra project, announced in June, would lead to “an eventual privatization of money.” He also said Libra would undermine the fight against money laundering and boost the risk of a global economic crisis in the event of a technical bug.
   
• French prosecutors have opened a probe into the past business activity of the speaker of the National Assembly, muddying efforts by President Emmanuel Macron to clean up politics in the wake of the yellow-vest crisis. Investigators in the city of Lille are examining whether Richard Ferrand, who ran Mr. Macron’s presidential campaign, abused his role as an executive at Mutuelles de Bretagne in 2011, when the health insurer decided to rent a building from Mr. Ferrand’s girlfriend, the prosecutor’s office said. 
   
• A high-ranking official at the United Auto Workers union was charged with embezzlement of union money, as a yearslong federal corruption investigation into the union gains momentum just as contract talks with Detroit auto makers come to a head. Vance Pearson, director of the UAW’s Region 5 office in Missouri, was charged with conspiring with other union officials to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars in union money, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
   
• Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a final rule that limits the scope of federal clean-water regulations, in an effort to clear up confusion for landowners whose property sits near water sources that feed into the country’s network of major rivers. Farmers, property developers, chemical manufacturers and oil-and-gas producers voiced opposition to expanded oversight during the Obama administration.
   
• Federal safety regulators are taking a closer look into the automatic emergency-braking system on more than a half-million Nissan Rogue sport-utility vehicles, which owners complain can cause their vehicles to slam on the brakes for no reason.
   
• The U.K. government could refuse to approve a potential $36.6 billion takeover of London Stock Exchange Group by its Hong Kong rival because it forms too critical a part of the country’s financial infrastructure, according to people familiar with the matter. Officials at the Bank of England, who informally advise the U.K. Treasury, believe the London Stock Exchange’s clearing arm, LCH, constitutes crucial market plumbing, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Also...

• Square Wants to Be a Bank But Doesn’t Want to Be Taxed Like One
• Trucking Industry Raises Alarms on California Gig Economy Legislation
• Senate Confirms U.S. Treasury Official in Charge of National Security Reviews
• Rep. Chris Collins Pleads Not Guilty to Revised Insider-Trading Charges

In the aftermath of corporate breaches that exposed consumers’ personal and financial data, victim companies carefully guard details of what went wrong. They argue the information must stay under wraps because it could provide a blueprint for hackers planning attacks. But corporations are now coming under increasing pressure to release details about how hackers infiltrate their systems and steal sensitive information.

Marriott International Inc. is fighting to keep private a forensic report about a data breach the hotel chain disclosed in November. A federal judge recently ordered Marriott to release an unredacted copy of the report, which an outside investigator prepared for the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a group that sets standards for handling payments data. The group requires its member companies to hire a certified investigator after a breach.

• OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP nixed plans earlier this year to launch a foundation to fund opioid-addiction treatment and research as the company rethought its strategy amid hundreds of lawsuits and a possible bankruptcy filing. Purdue staff pitched the foundation concept several years ago, and the drugmaker’s owners and executives spent several months developing the latest version, according to people familiar with the matter and internal company emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
   
• The European Central Bank’s decision to lower its key interest rate further below zero while relaunching an asset-purchase program means monetary policy in Europe is now even more stimulative than in the U.S. That prompted a strong response from President Trump, who complained in a tweet that the ECB is weakening the euro against the U.S. dollar and thus “hurting U.S. exports,” while the Federal Reserve “sits, and sits and sits.”

• British American Tobacco plans to cut thousands of jobs in a restructuring aimed at boosting the growth of new products as traditional cigarette volumes decline. The maker of the Kent, Dunhill and Lucky Strike brands, like much of the industry, is pushing further into vapor, oral and tobacco-heating products, which are tempting away smokers. 
   
• General Electric Co. Chief Executive Larry Culp said he expects asset sales to bring in about $38 billion in cash for the company as it begins paring down its large debt load, and there are signs the long-struggling power division is gaining strength. Speaking at an investor conference, Mr. Culp also said falling interest rates will increase GE’s pension benefits obligation by about $7 billion net of investment returns and its insurance reserve funding by less than $1.5 billion. 

Zack Harmon, who until recently served as chief of staff of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has returned to King & Spalding LLP in Washington. Mr. Harmon moved to the FBI in January 2018 from King & Spalding. He also has served as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Justice Department, including on a task force responsible for prosecuting energy trader Enron Corp. after the firm’s collapse in 2001. Mr. Harmon returns to the law firm as a partner in its special matters and government investigations team.

—Dylan Tokar

Amanda Kramer, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, has joined the New York office of law firm Covington & Burling LLP. Ms. Kramer, who most recently served as a senior prosecutor on a task force focused on securities and commodities fraud, will be a partner in Covington’s white-collar defense and investigations practice. She left the U.S. attorney’s office in August.

—Dylan Tokar

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