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The Morning Risk Report: NRA Faces New Fight as Attorney General Opens Probe
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Retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Oliver North said he won’t be renominated as NRA president. PHOTO: DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The New York attorney general’s office is investigating potential financial and disclosure problems at the National Rifle Association, amid boardroom turmoil at the group that led to the departure of NRA President Oliver North after a bruising internal political battle. The probe, which focuses in part on allegations that the nonprofit’s insiders have been profiting off the group, is the very thing the NRA was concerned about and had tried to prepare for, according to NRA officials.
The departure of Mr. North comes after NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre sent a letter to the NRA board accusing Mr. North of trying to extort him and force him out over allegations of financial improprieties.
[Continued below…]
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The NRA, as a New York-registered nonprofit, is regulated by that state, which has some of the toughest nonprofit laws in the U.S. The New York attorney general’s office, in a document-preservation letter sent to the NRA Friday, said the investigation was focused on “related-party transactions between the NRA and its board members; unauthorized political activity; and potentially false or misleading disclosures in regulatory filings,” according to a person familiar with the matter.
“The NRA will fully cooperate with any inquiry into its finances,” said William A. Brewer III, an outside attorney for the gun-rights group. “The NRA is prepared for this, and has full confidence in its accounting practices and commitment to good governance.”
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza speaking at a news conference at the United Nations in New York on April 26. PHOTO: DON EMMERT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Venezuela’s foreign minister, who last week denounced U.S. sanctions against his country during a press conference at the United Nations, has been added to the U.S. sanctions list, Risk & Compliance Journal’s Mengqi Sun reports. The Treasury Department blacklisted Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat, who has been Venezuela’s minister of foreign affairs since 2017.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk leaving federal court in Manhattan after a hearing on his fraud settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 4. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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Elon Musk reached a deal with U.S. regulators that would eliminate the risk of him being held in contempt for allegedly violating an earlier court order over his use of Twitter. The feud stems from a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation in 2018 that alleged the chief executive of Tesla Inc. misled investors by tweeting about a potential buyout of his company.
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The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into how Ford Motor Co. certifies its vehicles to meet U.S. emissions standards. Ford said in February it was planning to investigate its certification process after some employees raised concerns about its testing methods. That month, Ford informed the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board of the internal probe.
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Whiting Petroleum Corp.’s investigation into past allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment brought against its chief executive raises questions about how much a company can and should reveal about an employee being investigated for sexual misconduct, balancing the need to be forthcoming while navigating privacy laws that can prevent full disclosure. Whiting told The Wall Street Journal that it is standing by CEO Brad Holly. Mr. Holly has denied the allegations.
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As the U.S. raises economic pressure on Iran, the European Union is increasingly eager to avoid steps that could push Tehran to quit the 2015 nuclear deal and rev up its nuclear program. These concerns grew more acute last week, with the EU criticizing the U.S. decision to end sanction waivers in May, which had allowed a handful of countries to continue buying Iranian oil without risk of U.S. penalties.
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Lab-testing startup uBiome Inc. is under scrutiny from law enforcement and insurers for billing practices regarding its tests for the microbiome—the microorganisms that live in the digestive tract and other parts of the body—according to people familiar with the inquiries.
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Img caption/IMG CREDIT HERE
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Boeing Co. didn’t tell Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers when they began flying its 737 MAX jets that a safety feature found on earlier models that warns pilots about malfunctioning sensors had been deactivated, according to government and industry officials. Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and supervisors responsible for monitoring Southwest, the largest 737 MAX customer, also were unaware of the change, the officials said. Separately, U.S. aviation regulators and congressional investigators are looking into complaints by roughly a dozen purported whistleblowers alleging safety problems with Boeing’s beleaguered 737 MAX jets, according to officials.
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PG&E Corp. can’t prevent its power lines from sparking the kinds of wildfires that have killed scores of Californians. So instead, it plans to pull the plug on a giant swath of the state’s population.
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A deadly disease sweeping China’s hog barns is reinvigorating the fortunes of U.S. meat companies. Outbreaks of African swine fever have led to the culling of millions of hogs in the world’s top pork market. That is shrinking global meat supplies—and boosting prices.
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Werner Baumann, chief executive officer of Bayer AG, defended the company’s acquisition of Monsanto in Bonn, Germany, on Friday. PHOTO: JASPER JUINEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Shareholders in Bayer AG let loose on Chief Executive Werner Baumann, warning that the company’s acquisition of Monsanto Co. had put Bayer’s future in jeopardy. The German company’s $63 billion purchase of Monsanto last year has opened it up to thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging that the agricultural giant’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer. Investors gathered at Bayer’s annual general meeting said Mr. Baumann and his fellow directors had underestimated the legal liabilities when preparing the takeover.
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Swedbank AB said late Sunday that it is proposing former Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson as the bank’s chairman, as it continues efforts to repair its image in the wake of a money-laundering scandal.
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T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere’s 2018 compensation jumped to $66.5 million after the cellphone carrier granted him and other executives a large stock-based award tied to its pending merger with rival Sprint Corp.
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The iPhone business has long driven Apple’s profits. PHOTO: ALY SONG/REUTERS
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Apple Inc. held talks with Intel Corp. about acquiring parts of its smartphone-modem chip business, according to people familiar with the matter, a potential multibillion-dollar deal that would accelerate the iPhone maker’s efforts to develop wireless technology for its devices. The talks started around last summer and continued for months before halting recently, some of the people said.
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Many pharmaceutical companies expect cancer treatments to drive growth in the coming years. One notable exception: the world’s largest cancer-drug maker. Switzerland’s Roche Holding AG has enjoyed almost two decades as an unrivaled force in oncology. Now, with more companies piling into the space and its top-selling drugs losing sales to lower-cost copies, that is about to change.
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Renault SA wants to propose a merger with Nissan Motor Co., bringing officially onto the bargaining table a plan that has angered Nissan, inflamed international tensions and contributed to the prosecution of Carlos Ghosn. Renault recently asked a Japanese investment bank to approach Nissan to lay out a plan for a holding company that would combine the two auto-making partners, according to people familiar with the proposal.
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As global companies struggle with an economic slowdown in China, big drugmakers have a different problem: local competition is starting to bite. Executives at Sanofi SA and AstraZeneca PLC said they expect strong growth in China to slow later this year as hospitals switch to Chinese-made generic versions of some of their top-selling drugs.
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When Walt Bettinger’s 3 a.m. alarm sounds, among the first things the Charles Schwab Corp. chief executive does is check how much net new money his company has pulled in over the past 24 hours. Last year, that was an average of $624 million a day—more than its three biggest Wall Street rivals combined.
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