Good morning. The U.K.’s financial regulator is reviewing whether the country’s institutions are being too tough on individuals with political exposure, a move that follows a controversial decision by a private bank to drop Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage as a customer.

• Actions against PEPs to be scrutinized: The Financial Conduct Authority said Tuesday it would look into whether domestic politically exposed persons—those entrusted with a prominent public function—might be getting unfairly cut off from banking services.
   
• Report due back next year: The agency intends to publish the results of its review in June 2024, but it said it could take action against banks sooner if it identifies problems with any institution’s policies.
   
• Reasons behind the move: The normally quiet, back-office function of evaluating clients for their riskiness has drawn intense scrutiny in the U.K. since July, when Farage said he was dropped as a client of Coutts, a private bank to the royal family and other wealthy elites, because of his political views. Farage, a former leader of the UK Independence Party and campaigner for Britain to leave the European Union, later released a document that showed a Coutts risk committee deemed him a potential problem for the bank’s reputation.

SEC fines real estate private-equity firm Prime Group.

Real-estate investment firm Prime Group Holdings will pay $20.5 million to settle allegations of inadequate disclosures around brokerage fees it charged investors, U.S. regulators said Tuesday.

The charges. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Prime, a private-equity firm that buys and manages self-storage properties, didn’t disclose that millions of dollars in brokerage fees paid by fund investors between 2017 and 2021 went to a firm owned by Prime’s chief executive.

The settlement. Prime agreed to pay a $6.5 million penalty and repay investors about $14 million, including interest, to settle the charges, the SEC said. Prime neither admitted nor denied the charges as part of the settlement. 

• Money-for-Nothing Lawsuits Against Private-Equity Founders Get Boost

• Amazon.com officials haven’t offered concessions to the Federal Trade Commission in pursuit of a settlement over antitrust claims, paving the way for the regulator to file a lawsuit later this month, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce brought forward his retirement Tuesday following a suit filed last week by Australia's competition regulator, which alleged the airline had advertised tickets for more than 8,000 flights it had already canceled.
   
• U.S. auto-safety regulators are escalating their efforts to force a recall of millions of air-bag inflators that the government says are at risk of exploding during a crash and sending shrapnel flying at the driver and passengers.

Russian and Saudi oil-production cuts flash warning on Chinese economy.

An extension of oil-production cuts by two of the world’s largest crude exporters Tuesday hardened Wall Street’s fears that the Chinese economy has hit a rough patch that could slow global growth.

Russia and Saudi Arabia surprised many investors by curtailing output through the end of the year, pushing oil prices to their highest levels of 2023, but oil’s gains could be short-lived. Some analysts warned that attempts by Riyadh and Moscow to tighten the market—and bolster their national budgets—signal that there is limited upside for Chinese demand and little appetite from Beijing for the type of infrastructure investments required to juice it.

“That’s what the market wants from the Chinese, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen,” said Robert Yawger, executive director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. “They have no dry powder, basically.”

• Saudi Cuts Send World Diesel Prices Soaring

• France has started talks with Niger’s military over the possible withdrawal of French troops from the West African country, according to French officials, in the wake of a coup that ousted the country’s elected president.
   
• Some companies are being irresponsible in the way they use open-source software, with a significant number downloading vulnerable versions even years after they have led to devastating hacks, cybersecurity experts say.
   
• For more than four years, Kim Jong Un has stayed inside his country’s borders, focused on a deadly virus, a stifled economy and a corrupt elite. Now, the North Korean leader, U.S. officials said, could be planning his first foreign trip for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Officials doling out billions of dollars for broadband in rural America are struggling to decide when a new hookup costs too much.
   
• The Internal Revenue Service has slowed the payment of tax refunds to employers under a pandemic-era program, as the agency struggles to combat what it says are fraudulent and overstated claims for the employee-retention tax credit.
   
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate on Tuesday and released a doctor’s letter saying he didn’t suffer a stroke or seizure, moving to quell concerns about his health.
   
• More asylum seekers are wading across the shallow waters of the Rio Grande and skirting the 1,000-foot-long chain of buoys along the U.S.-Mexico border.
   
• Security groups loyal to the Kremlin are moving to take control of Wagner’s military forces in Ukraine and Africa in the wake of the death of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at david.smagalla@wsj.com.