Good morning. Top business groups and a national tax-services firm filed lawsuits Wednesday challenging a new Federal Trade Commission ban on noncompete agreements, cases that will test the agency’s power to broadly prohibit practices it says are anticompetitive.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenged the regulation in federal court in East Texas while the tax firm Ryan LLC filed its lawsuit in Dallas federal court. Other business groups joined the Chamber’s suit—including the Business Roundtable, which represents chief executive officers of some of the country’s biggest employers.

• The rule: Issued by the FTC on Tuesday, the rule prohibits companies from enforcing existing noncompete agreements on anyone other than senior executives. The FTC says one in five Americans is subject to noncompete agreements. Businesses that use noncompetes say they are an effective way to protect their intellectual property, customer relationships and other investments.
   
• FTC's response: “Our legal authority is crystal-clear,” FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar said. “Addressing noncompetes that curtail Americans’ economic freedom is at the very heart of our mandate, and we look forward to winning in court."
   
• Policy background: The FTC’s ban on noncompetes is the capstone of a larger set of moves at the agency that have elevated the interests of workers in antitrust enforcement. The Biden administration called for eliminating noncompetes in 2021, when the White House issued a blueprint for stricter enforcement of the antitrust laws.

Also:

• What the FTC’s Ban on Noncompete Clauses Means for You

McKinsey under criminal investigation over opioid-related consulting.

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into consulting firm McKinsey related to its past role in advising some of the nation’s largest opioid manufacturers on how to boost sales.

Federal prosecutors are also probing whether McKinsey or any of its employees may have obstructed justice in relation to records of its consulting services for opioid producers, according to people familiar with the investigation, which has been ongoing for several years.

Crypto mixer Samourai Wallet’s co-founders arrested for money laundering.

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday targeted another so-called cryptocurrency mixer, accusing the two co-founders of Samourai Wallet of money laundering and of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. 

Keonne Rodriguez, Samourai’s chief executive, and William Lonergan Hill, its chief technology officer, were arrested and charged for developing and operating Samourai.

• A former Ecuadorean comptroller general was convicted in the U.S. of participating in a bribery and money-laundering scheme tied to Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
   
• The European Union is ramping up economic pressure on Beijing with two new investigations into allegations of unfair Chinese business practices, days ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned visits to Paris and Budapest.
   
• The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday with the consequences of its 2022 decision ending the nationwide right to abortion, in a case pitting the health of women suffering medical emergencies against an Idaho law that bans the procedure.
   
• China’s securities regulator gave self-driving startup Pony.ai the nod to list in the U.S., in a sign that Beijing’s grip on companies seeking to raise capital overseas may be easing.
   
• President Biden on Wednesday signed a bill into law that will force a sale or ban of TikTok. Does that mean RIP forever, TikTok? No, or not yet, anyway.
   
• A Russian deputy defense minister responsible for the armed forces’ most ambitious construction projects was arrested Wednesday on bribery charges, in the highest-profile corruption scandal Russia has seen in years and as the war in Ukraine is at a critical juncture.

Ukraine using secretly provided longer-range missiles against Russian forces. 

Ukraine used longer-range ATACMS missiles secretly provided by the U.S. against Russian forces east of Berdyansk, a strike that occurred less than 24 hours before President Biden signed a law Wednesday that includes money for more of those weapons, U.S. officials said.

It was only the second time Ukraine had used the longer-range variant of ATACMS, a U.S. official said, an American-provided capability that hadn’t been previously disclosed.

• Inside a Besieged Ukrainian City Where Soldiers Await U.S. Arms

Main Street banking model is being squeezed. 

Higher-for-longer interest rates are continuing to weigh on Main Street banks.

Regional banks posted steep profit declines in the first quarter and predicted more pain ahead. The results underscore the uneven toll that two years of higher interest rates have taken on regional banks, which tend to have plain-vanilla businesses taking in deposits and making loans. That model has become less profitable because of the pressure to pay up on deposits.

• Hamas released a video of an American-Israeli hostage on Wednesday, increasing pressure on the Israeli government to strike a deal with the militant group and raising hope the 23-year-old is alive after six months in captivity despite grave injuries.
   
• A surprise rate increase by Indonesia’s central bank underlines expectations that the start of monetary policy easing is looking increasingly far off for many Asian central banks, if it is on the horizon at all.

• Even during the heady days when the Chinese property boom was just getting going, the truth was obvious to anyone who knew what to look for: The boom had turned into a bubble—and was likely to end very badly. The bubble proceeded to get even worse, though, because no one wanted the music to stop. 
   
• Creating a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court was perhaps the crowning achievement of Donald Trump’s presidency, with three appointees who delivered generational victories. But the court has been no balm when it comes to Trump’s personal interests.
   
• Meta Platforms on Wednesday reported record first-quarter revenue as the company’s advertising business grew at a rapid clip even as investors soured on forecasts of rising costs related to artificial intelligence. 
   
• The frenzy to build data centers to serve the exploding demand for artificial intelligence is causing a shortage of the parts, property and power that the sprawling warehouses of supercomputers require.
   
• A forced sale or ban of TikTok makes the future uncertain for one of America’s favorite apps and opens the door for competitors eager to compete for attention and ad dollars.

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