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The Morning Risk Report: Las Vegas Workers Sue Casinos Over Covid-19 Safety
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A person wearing a protective mask plays blackjack behind plexiglass dividers at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. PHOTO: JOE BUGLEWICZ/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Good morning. Las Vegas Strip hospitality workers filed a lawsuit against casino operators, accusing the companies of failing to protect employees from Covid-19—one of the first efforts to hold employers legally responsible for infections as cases in the U.S. surge.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, says operators didn’t immediately shut down food-and-beverage outlets and other areas after learning of positive cases, didn’t immediately inform employees when co-workers tested positive and didn’t adequately contact-trace before allowing colleagues of infected employees to return to the job. The lawsuit said unsafe working conditions violate the unions’ contract.
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Senate Republicans and the Trump administration have pushed to shield companies from liability during the coronavirus pandemic as a condition of the next round of relief for households and businesses. U.S. companies have expressed concern about litigation as workers get sick or die from Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said the risk of class-action claims and other lawsuits could deter businesses from reopening. Las Vegas casinos were allowed to reopen on June 4 with masks voluntary for guests.
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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Telegram to Pay $18.5 Million to Settle SEC Charges
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Telegram Group Inc. and a subsidiary agreed to pay an $18.5 million civil penalty and return about $1.22 billion to investors to settle charges that it violated investor-protection laws, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said. The settlement is the latest and likely final chapter in one of the biggest cryptocurrency cases brought by the SEC—one that tested the regulator’s enforcement of cryptocurrency regulations.
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Former French Prime Minister François Fillon arrived at the Paris courthouse Monday for the ruling. PHOTO: BERTRAND GUAY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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A French court convicted former Prime Minister François Fillonon corruption charges and handed a five-year prison sentence to a politician once considered the front-runner to win France’s 2017 presidential election.
Judges in Paris also ordered Mr. Fillon to pay 375,000 euros ($421,000), a spokeswoman for the financial prosecutor’s office said, after ruling that he misused public funds in employing his wife, Penelope Fillon, and two of their children as aides while he served as a member of Parliament. His wife and children did little or no work, the judges said on Monday. The court also convicted Mr. Fillon of misappropriating corporate assets by lining up a separate publishing job for his wife.
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The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service said the deadline to file and pay 2019 taxes by July 15 wouldn’t be extended further, drawing a line under the administration’s consideration of such a move.
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Chinese authorities have released a FedEx pilot detained nine months ago in the southern city of Guangzhou, easing a pressure point on the shipping giant that has been in Beijing’s crosshairs amid commercial disputes between the U.S. and China.
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China’s legislature approved Tuesday a sweeping new law aimed at quashing threats to national security in Hong Kong, rejecting Western criticism that Beijing’s efforts will curb people’s freedoms in the protest-torn city.
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Governments around the world have already repealed more than a third of the export bans on medical products and other restrictions put in place as a response to the coronavirus, the World Trade Organization said.
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Some bans on plastic shopping bags have been overturned, or fees lifted, because of concerns reusable alternatives could spread the novel coronavirus. The plastics industry is lobbying for more bans to be scrapped. The Plastics Industry Association recently asked Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to speak out against bans, saying they are “a public safety risk.”
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Iran issued a warrant to arrest President Trump and 35 others over the killing of a top Iranian general earlier this year, a largely symbolic order that is Tehran’s latest attempt to draw international attention to what it has labeled an act of terrorism.
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China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing would impose visa restrictions on “U.S. personnel who have behaved egregiously on Hong Kong-related issues,” a move that it said was in response to Washington’s announcement last week that it would sanction Chinese officials who it said contribute to undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy.
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The Supreme Court ordered changes to a government consumer-finance watchdog created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, capping a 10-year battle over the agency by ruling its structure was unconstitutional because the director held too much unchecked power.
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A protester in Kolkatta, India, demonstrated against TikTok after a border clash between China and India left 20 Indian soldiers dead this month. PHOTO: DEBARCHAN CHATTERJEE/ZUMA PRESS
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India banned dozens of Chinese mobile apps, including widely used TikTok and WeChat, after a border clash between troops from the two countries left 20 Indian soldiers dead this month. New Delhi cited cybersecurity concerns in blocking the Chinese apps from one of the largest and fastest-growing markets in the world. A senior Indian government official said the ban was imposed because the apps might have been used to harm India’s defenses, as well as to send a message to China.
He said India’s move might lead more countries to act similarly. Regulators in Washington are already formally weighing whether TikTok poses a national-security risk to the U.S. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, calling the issue “a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” said in a written statement that it had received multiple complaints about misuse of some mobile apps for the theft and unauthorized, surreptitious transmission of users’ data to servers outside India.
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The U.S. is making it tougher for American companies to help China roll out superfast cellular networks. But companies in Japan, a U.S. ally, are fueling China’s leap ahead and making money doing it.
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Electronic payments company Wirecard AG last week filed for insolvency proceedings after disclosing a $2 billion accounting hole. Following the news, Germany said it is overhauling its accounting oversight framework. PHOTO: WOLFGANG RATTAY/REUTERS
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Germany is overhauling its framework for accounting oversight following a financial scandal at Wirecard AG. The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection is working on a new regulatory setup together with the Federal Ministry of Finance, a spokesman for the justice ministry said. The justice ministry on Monday also canceled a contract with the country’s accounting watchdog, the Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel, effective Dec. 31, 2021.
Aschheim, Germany-based Wirecard last week filed for insolvency proceedings after disclosing a $2 billion accounting hole. The once-high flying electronic-payments company and member of the German Dax index of blue-chip companies on June 22 said the money missing from its balance sheet probably doesn’t exist, confirming earlier reports by banks which said they never held the funds.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to testify before a congressional committee on Tuesday. PHOTO: ERIC BARADAT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the reopening of the U.S. economy—and the accompanying upturn in spending and hiring this spring—has happened sooner than central bank officials expected. But he said the push to lift restrictions on commercial activity carried other risks, evidenced by recent increases in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations in states across the U.S. South and Southwest.
“I’m afraid it’s very uncertain” what lies ahead for the economy right now, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco leader Mary Daly said on a conference call with reporters. And New York state and city officials said they may delay the planned reopening of New York City restaurants for indoor dining, extending a shutdown that has already pushed some eateries to the brink of ruin.
Meanwhile, the Fed formally opened its $500 billion lending program to support issuance of new debt by large corporations, the last of nine emergency programs it is running to backstop lending markets reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.
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The Pakistan Stock Exchange building in Karachi came under attack Monday by an insurgent group saying it targeted the exchange because it is partly owned by a Chinese consortium. The Baloch Liberation Army, an insurgent outfit working to separate the western province of Balochistan from the rest of the country, accused China of colluding in the economic exploitation of their homeland.
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Clorox Co. said it would pause advertising on both Facebook and Instagram. PHOTO: CHRIS DELMAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Ford Motor, Clorox and Denny’s are joining a parade of companies that have moved to halt advertising spending on Facebook because of how the social-media giant has handled speech on its platforms. Ford said it will suspend its national social-media advertising for 30 days, as it re-evaluates spending on sites. Restaurant chain Denny’s said it is pausing paid advertising on Facebook starting Wednesday.
Clorox—the company behind its namesake cleaning supplies, Kingsford charcoal and other consumer brands—said it is pausing global ad spending on Facebook and Instagram through December. The move is to act against hate speech, “which we believe will increase through the balance of the year,” the company said in a statement.
Civil-rights groups have been pushing advertisers to pull spending from Facebook to protest what they describe as a failure to halt hate speech and misinformation on its platform.
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The online platforms Reddit and Amazon-owned Twitch suspended channels used by President Trump and his supporters, saying content there violated the companies’ policies, widening a clampdown by social media sites that has fueled a backlash from the White House and its defenders.
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Amazon.com has seen strong demand from consumers stuck at home during coronavirus lockdowns. PHOTO: DYLAN STEWART/IMAGE OF SPORTS/NEWSCOM/ZUMA PRESS
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Amazon said it would spend more than $500 million on bonuses for employees and some contractors, following months of strong demand from consumers stuck at home during coronavirus lockdowns and pressure on workers handling the jump in orders.
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AMC Entertainment Holdings, the country’s largest theater chain, is postponing plans to reopen its U.S. locations by about two weeks, to July 30, following date changes for the upcoming releases of two major films.
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Lawmakers and businesses are pushing the U.S. government to offer debt relief to hundreds of small hotel owners who borrowed with the help of bond markets. But the biggest beneficiaries of any assistance could be large real estate owners affiliated with properties that owe troubled hotel debt.
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Selling its petrochemicals business will help BP reach its target of $15 billion of asset sales by mid-2021. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Energy giant BP agreed to sell its petrochemicals business to a British chemicals company for $5 billion, marking the largest deal by an oil major since the coronavirus outbreak gripped the global economy.
The sale to Ineos Ltd. could help BP pare its relatively high debt load and separates the company from its peers. Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have been expanding their petrochemicals businesses partly because they have a brighter demand outlook than other areas such as transportation fuels.
BP is exiting the business, it said Monday, because it would have taken considerable investment to grow the division.
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