Good morning. The Justice Department has reached out to more than a dozen companies in its antitrust probe of Google, including publishers, advertising technology firms and advertising agencies, as the company’s online ad tools become a major focus of the investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.

In recent months, the department has been posing increasingly detailed questions—to Google’s rivals and executives inside the company itself—about how Google’s third-party advertising business interacts with publishers and advertisers, the people say. That digital business was built largely on the company’s 2008 acquisition of the ad-technology firm DoubleClick.

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Many of the questions center around two moves that Google has made in recent years that publishers and rivals say have helped consolidate its power. The first was Google’s integration of its ad server, the leading tool for websites to put ad space up for sale, with its ad exchange, the industry’s largest digital ad marketplace. The second move was Google’s decision to require advertisers to use its own tools to buy ad space on YouTube.

“They are zooming in on the right topics, and that’s a good thing,” said Michael Nevins, chief marketing officer of Smart AdServer, which makes a rival ad technology to Google’s.

Danish lender Danske Bank AS said higher compliance costs continue to weigh on its financial performance.

The Copenhagen-based bank’s operating expenses rose 10% during the 2019 calendar year compared with a year earlier, largely due to efforts to bolster its anti-money laundering controls. The bank expects its compliance investments to peak this year and then gradually decrease. Quarterly profits beat analysts’ expectations despite the rise in costs.

Danske Bank is being investigated by Denmark, Estonia, France and the U.S. over allegations that about $230 billion in suspicious funds from Russia and other former Soviet states entered Europe through its branch in Estonia. The bank said Wednesday that it remains in dialogue with the various international authorities, adding  it is uncertain when their investigations will conclude.

Danske Bank said its internal investigation into the terminated non-resident portfolio that was involved in the suspected money laundering is still expected to conclude by the fourth quarter of this year.

—Dominic Chopping and Kristin Broughton

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. has entered into preliminary discussions with regulators to resolve an investigation into its compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said Tuesday.

Alexion received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting information related to its grant-making activities and its compliance with the FCPA in May 2015. That was followed by another FCPA-related subpoena from the Justice Department in October 2015.

The agencies also have sought information related to Alexion's recall of the immunosuppressive drug Soliris, and related securities disclosures. The investigations have focused on Alexion's operations in Brazil, Colombia, Japan, Russia and Turkey. Alexion said it was unable to predict the duration, scope or outcome of the discussions with the SEC. The company said it was cooperating with both agencies.

—Dylan Tokar

• Congress is raising pressure on the credit-ratings industry, pushing regulators to revamp business models to eliminate a conflict of interest that was considered a cause of the financial crisis. A bipartisan group of four U.S. senators asked the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday why the agency failed to tackle the industry’s “issuer pay” model, in which entities that sell bonds also pay for ratings.
   
• McKinsey & Co. and longtime adversary Jay Alix teed off a courtroom trial Wednesday over the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, a core tenet of the nation’s bankruptcy system. Mr. Alix, who founded rival corporate turnaround firm AlixPartners LLP, has accused McKinsey’s bankruptcy advisory unit of flouting disclosure laws, especially in how it disclosed information about the billions of dollars it invests on behalf of current and former employees.
   
• Prosecutors in Louisiana’s Orleans Parish are facing a lawsuit for sending fake subpoenas. The lawsuit challenges a 40-year-old doctrine that gives prosecutors a nearly absolute shield against lawsuits for on-the-job misconduct. The case has shined a spotlight on the wide latitude given to prosecutors to pursue convictions without the official scrutiny for potential civil-rights violations that police officers and federal law-enforcement routinely face.
   
• Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont proposed legalizing marijuana and overhauling the state’s economic-development strategy as part of his $22.3 billion budget proposal that called for no income-tax increases. Mr. Lamont, a Democrat, also called for banning flavored-vaping products and instituting a new excise tax on non-flavored e-cigarette merchandise.
   
• Real-estate brokers can no longer impose a fee on New Yorkers when they rent an apartment, the state says. The ruling is a victory for renters who until now often have paid upfront broker costs, along with security deposits and first month’s rent, that have made living in New York City increasingly expensive.
   
• Bernie Madoff Says He’s Dying, Requests Early Release From Prison
• Trump Meets With Venezuela Opposition Leader at White House

• A rare criminal investigation into corporate auditing is focused on allegations that bid-rigging helped Ernst & Young win a competition run by Sealed Air Corp., according to people close to the probe. The scrutiny highlights the close ties that often exist between corporate executives and the Big Four audit firms.
   
• The U.K.’s regulator for auditors and accountants plans to boost its audit and reporting reviews and extend its monitoring of audit firms—a move that comes amid concerns about the quality of audits in Britain. The Financial Reporting Council on Wednesday said it would increase the number of audit quality reviews—examining the work done by statutory auditors and audit firms—by about 27% to up to 165 in its next fiscal year, which ends March 2021.

Airbus shut down a factory in China that accounts for almost 10% of the production of its most popular jet, as a precaution to contain the coronavirus outbreak striking global industries.

Hyundai Motor said it was idling all seven of its plants in South Korea because of a lack of parts from suppliers in China. It was the first big auto maker to shut down production outside of China because of supply-line bottlenecks resulting from widespread factory outages and strict limits on worker movements in the country.

Tesla, meanwhile, warned of delivery delays in China. Tao Lin, a vice president for the electric-car maker, posted on chat service Weibo on Tuesday that deliveries set for early February would be affected. Tesla’s new factory in Shanghai has been closed due to the outbreak.

Apple and Foxconn Technology, the largest manufacturer of Apple devices, said halted production will resume Monday. But signs are emerging that the impact on the companies will extend beyond the shutdown, according to analysts and manufacturing executives. For the current quarter, Apple is expected to ship 5% to 10% fewer iPhones than was projected prior to the outbreak, according to analysts.

• Yum China Shows Impact on Chinese Consumption
• Coronavirus Hits Shipping as China Port Traffic Slides
• Outbreak Prompts Patients to Scramble for Remedies
• Cruise Passengers Face Infection Worries, Blown Travel Plans, Boredom
• Your Corona Is Safe From Coronaviruses—No Need to Add Disinfectant

China said it would slash tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. imports in half as part of its efforts to implement a recently signed trade agreement with Washington.

Beginning Feb. 14, China will cut tariffs on some U.S. goods to 5% from 10%, while levies on some other items will be reduced to 2.5% from 5%, China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement Thursday. The tariffs were imposed in September and December during a brutal trade fight between the world’s two largest economies.

The tariff cuts come amid growing doubts about Beijing’s ability to follow through on the phase-one trade deal, in which China has pledged to boost its purchases of American merchandise and services by $200 billion over two years.

• Companies Find Ways to Bypass Tariffs on Chinese Imports
• U.S. Trade Deficit Narrows for First Time in Six Years

Three Credit Suisse Group shareholders urged its chairman to publicly support Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam or resign, as a scandal over the surveillance of executives threatens to split the bank’s leadership.

David Herro, a partner at Harris Associates, Credit Suisse’s biggest investor with a 8.42% stake, is among them. He said in an interview he has lost confidence in Chairman Urs Rohner and that Mr. Rohner should step down before his term ends in 2021. Mr. Herro said he believes the board’s view of Mr. Thiam is being clouded by continuing attacks against the CEO in the Swiss press, and that he is concerned Mr. Rohner could move to replace Mr. Thiam as soon as this week at a scheduled board meeting.

A Credit Suisse spokesman declined to comment on behalf of the bank and Mr. Rohner and the board. The board is scheduled to meet Thursday, in a routine meeting before the bank posts 2019 results next week.

• AB InBev said longtime finance chief Felipe Dutra will step down as part of a management shake-up at the Belgium-based brewer. Fernando Tennenbaum, the company’s vice president of finance for South America, will become chief financial officer after its annual meeting on April 29, AB InBev said. Mr. Dutra has been AB InBev’s CFO since January 2005 and played a key role in building AB InBev by striking various deals to integrate assets including Interbrew, Anheuser-Busch International, Modelo and SABMiller.
   
• The head of French figure skating refused his government’s call to step down over the federation’s handling of alleged sexual abuse, reflecting the uneven response by sports officials to a reckoning that is spanning multiple countries and sports.
   
• The chief executive of professional networking platform LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, is stepping down in June, and will become executive chairman of the company, he announced in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday.

Lawmakers chastised top executives of five vaping companies at a hearing Wednesday, blaming them for causing an epidemic of e-cigarette use among young people through targeted marketing.

The senior executives said they didn’t now market to young people, and some said they never have. But some congressmen rejected those claims.

K.C. Crosthwaite, chief executive of Juul Labs, acknowledged that “trust in our company and category has eroded.” But he vowed to regain that trust, and presented data that he said showed e-cigarettes can be effective in helping cigarette smokers quit.

Shadow brought the first major nominating contest of the presidential election season to a screeching halt when its app failed to work as planned.

The ensuing fallout put a spotlight on the disconnect between the little-known startup and its well-funded patron, the progressive nonprofit Acronym. 

The debacle at the Iowa caucuses also raises questions about the role of new technologies being deployed within the electoral system.

Casper Sleep priced its IPO at the low end of its already slashed range, the latest sign that the path to public ownership remains treacherous for unprofitable startups.

Casper pegged its share price at $12 on Wednesday just over a week after the mattress seller said it expected its stock to price between $17 and $19 a share. On Wednesday morning, Casper lowered its expected price range, signaling it had struggled to find enough demand at higher levels.

The pricing gives Casper a valuation of roughly $476 million, excluding an underwriters’ allotment—well below the $1.1 billion where it was valued privately. It is slated to begin trading on Thursday. The IPO market has been inhospitable for months, especially for companies that aren’t profitable, after a series of disappointments from highly anticipated debuts in 2019.

• Sanofi swung to a loss in the fourth quarter as the recall of heartburn drug Zantac over cancer concerns offset strong sales of newer treatments.

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