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The Morning Risk Report: Opioid-Addiction Litigation Heads to Complex Trial
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A trial nearly two years in the making could start Monday, putting the effects of the opioid crisis on full display. PHOTO: ERIC BARADAT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Good morning. Drug companies and plaintiffs attorneys on Sunday appeared to be at an impasse in talks to settle lawsuits over the opioid epidemic, laying the ground for a trial that is part of what has been called the largest and most complex civil case in the nation’s history.
Lawyers said settlement discussions hit a snag over how much money companies are willing to pay and how it would be distributed among state, city and county governments. The lawyers were attempting to negotiate a comprehensive settlement valued as high as $48 billion that would call off the trial and resolve thousands of opioid lawsuits.
[Continued below...]
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Lacking an agreement, a trial nearly two years in the making will start Monday, putting the effects of the opioid crisis on full display.
The jury trial in front of U.S. District Judge Dan Polster will pit two Ohio counties against players up and down the prescription drug supply chain.
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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Anti-Money-Laundering Watchdog Extends Deadline for Iran
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A global anti-money-laundering watchdog is increasing pressure on Iran to meet its standards while giving the country more time to do so.
The Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based intergovernmental body that sets standards for anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing rules, also added three other countries to its blacklist of jurisdictions considered to have weak anti-money-laundering regimes.
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Herlis Rodriguez of the Cardenales de Lara in action. Under a new agreement, the Venezuelan season starts next month with the number of games slashed to 42 from 63. PHOTO: LUIS ACOSTA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Exxon Mobil and New York’s attorney general are headed for a showdown this week over accusations the company deceived investors, a rare trial over how the oil industry accounts for the impact of climate change.
The trial, which begins Tuesday in state court in Manhattan, is the culmination of a sprawling investigation into Exxon and its accounting practices that spanned four years and three New York attorneys general. It is expected to include as a witness former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was Exxon’s chief executive from 2006 to 2016.
The attorney general’s office said the company told investors that it was taking into account the future costs of regulations it expected governments to adopt in response to climate change. But Exxon’s internal calculations didn’t match its public representations, the office said.
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U.S. lawmakers probing the 737 MAX jet crisis are ratcheting up scrutiny of Boeing Co. leaders as new details point to pressure on engineers and pilots in its commercial-aircraft unit.
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Investigators for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee looking into the design and certification of the 737 MAX received details of a three-year-old internal Boeing survey showing roughly one in three employees who responded felt “potential undue pressure” from managers regarding safety-related approvals by federal regulators across an array of commercial planes. Workload and schedule were cited as important causes.
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Consumers harmed by financial firms got back $777 million through actions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the last fiscal year, the largest amount in four years. That included settlements of a few significant long-pending investigations, the agency said.
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Venezuela’s baseball league says it has cut all sponsorship ties to its country’s government institutions blacklisted by the U.S. in an attempt to find a way around sanctions that prompted Major League Baseball to ban its players from winter ball in the South American country.
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Brazilian police believe top executives and managers at Vale deliberately shielded themselves from incriminating information about the state of the company’s dam that collapsed in January to avoid liability, according to a copy of a police inquiry reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Another group of parents charged in the college admissions cheating scandal said they planned to plead guilty, a move that comes in advance of expected new charges against holdouts. Sentences for those parents have ranged from probation to five months, lighter than some had expected, which also could have helped push this batch of three more parents to take deals.
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A former Wynn Resorts Ltd. employee sued the casino giant, claiming that it organized a spy operation against him after he described sexual-misconduct allegations against the company’s founder, Steve Wynn.
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British lawmakers approved a measure that forced Boris Johnson's government to ask the EU for an extension to the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline—something the prime minister had said he wouldn't do. PHOTO: MATT CROSSICK/ZUMA PRESS
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to bring his Brexit deal back to Parliament this week for a critical vote after lawmakers forced him to ask the European Union for another delay to Britain’s withdrawal.
Mr. Johnson will try as soon as Monday to secure the votes he needs to win approval, potentially paving the way for the U.K. to leave the EU after more than three years of negotiation and fierce debate. Downing Street would hope to use a win to attempt to race through the final stages of legislative scrutiny in time for an Oct. 31 deadline and make any extension unnecessary.
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A federal appeals court decision that could strike down the Affordable Care Act as soon as this month has rattled officials in several states who are pursuing legislation to preserve some coverage in the absence of any Trump administration contingency plan. Lawmakers in states including Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and California have passed bills or are reviewing action aimed at dealing with the fallout if the ACA is overturned.
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Companies’ Non-GAAP Adjustments to Net Income Have Soared
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Adjusted earnings figures have proliferated among technology companies, including Uber Technologies. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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Companies’ reliance on disclosing adjusted earnings or other figures not consistent with generally accepted accounting principles has made it more difficult for investors to forecast performance, putting them at greater risk than they may realize, new academic research shows.
Companies say that such tailor-made metrics are a way for investors to better understand their business. As a result, the rise of earnings adjustments over the past 20 years has been dramatic.
Non-GAAP adjustments related to net income increased 33% from 1998 to 2017, according to the research, which was conducted by accounting professors from the Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
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Mark Hurd, shown during the Oracle OpenWorld 2018 conference in San Francisco, had shared the title of Oracle Corp. CEO with Safra Catz since September 2014. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Mark Hurd, who served as chief executive of three U.S. tech companies including software-giant Oracle, died Friday.
Mr. Hurd, who was 62 years old, made his name as a strong-willed leader who helped revive the fortunes of two companies, including Hewlett Packard, where he was CEO last decade. But some of his other judgments courted controversy, and he was pushed out of H-P after a company investigation found misconduct.
On Sept. 11, Oracle said Mr. Hurd was taking medical leave. Neither he nor the company disclosed the cause of the illness or likelihood of a recovery, raising questions about disclosures made to shareholders.
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A career State Department official told congressional investigators this week that he raised concerns in 2015 with a senior official at the White House about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son being on the board of a Ukrainian natural-gas company because of concerns about the potential optics of a conflict of interest, a person familiar with the matter said.
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