Good morning. The Supreme Court made it easier Wednesday for workers to bring claims challenging job transfers as discriminatory, ruling that allegations of illegal treatment can be valid even if an employee’s pay or rank don’t change.

The court revived a lawsuit by a female police sergeant in St. Louis, who said she was unlawfully transferred from the intelligence division to a less prestigious patrol position because she is a woman.

• Case background: A federal appeals court in St. Louis dismissed the suit, concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires a plaintiff to show she suffered significant harm from a discriminatory act.
   
• The ruling: Writing for the court, Justice Elena Kagan said that while an employee must show more than trifling harm from an employer’s discriminatory action, the appeals court had raised the bar too high. “‘Discriminate against’ means treat worse, here based on sex. But neither that phrase nor any other says anything about how much worse,” Kagan wrote. “There is nothing in the provision to distinguish, as the courts below did, between transfers causing significant disadvantages and transfers causing not-so-significant ones.”
   
• The implications: The decision is the latest in a string of high-court rulings that have bolstered worker protections under Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

U.S. says oil companies in Venezuela can still operate despite regime oppression.

The Biden administration said Wednesday it would allow some American and European oil companies to carry on in Venezuela after U.S. efforts to coax President Nicolás Maduro into democratic overhauls by lifting economic sanctions ended in a hardening of his authoritarian regime.

After Maduro violated an October agreement with the U.S. to stage free and fair elections, the White House was under pressure to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela’s lifeblood energy industry.

Under the new guidelines released Wednesday, a number of Western energy firms that entered Venezuela after the U.S. lifted sanctions and issued a six-month general license permitting oil operations are required to apply for individual licenses from the Treasury Department to remain in the country. Without that license, they must close up operations by May 31.

Federal prosecutors have opted not to prosecute Proterial Cable America after finding that the Purchase, N.Y.-based company misrepresented the safety standards of its motorcycle brake hose assemblies.

The Justice Department notified Proterial Cable, formerly known as Hitachi Cable America, of its decision in a letter agreement dated April 12, which was posted to the department’s website.

An investigation by the department’s fraud section found that from around December 2006 through April 2022, Proterial Cable told customers that its assemblies met federal safety standards when they did not.

The department said it was declining to prosecute Proterial Cable since it quickly took steps to address the issue after it was raised by an employee during an internal audit. Proterial Cable didn’t return a request for comment.

—Dylan Tokar

Boeing’s quality complaints mount as another whistleblower comes forward. 

Boeing’s quality issues have prompted a growing chorus of former employees to come forward with concerns about the jet maker’s manufacturing process.

The latest is Roy Irvin, a quality manager who retired in 2020 and said employees working on the 787 Dreamliner jets were discouraged from flagging problems or recommending changes to prevent snafus.

• Chinese regulators sought to reassure investors in the wake of new rules governing its beleaguered equities markets, saying the once-in-a-decade changes will affect relatively few of the country’s thousands of publicly traded companies.
   
• President Biden called for raising tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from China, beginning what is expected to be a broadside of protectionist steps against Beijing during a presidential election in which trade is a flashpoint.
   
• The Justice Department has agreed to pay approximately $100 million to 100 victims of the former national women’s gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, over the FBI’s failures to take seriously the reports brought to it of his potential abuse of star athletes.
   
• The fight over Elon Musk’s pay is back on. Tesla’s board asked shareholders to again vote in favor of its CEO’s multibillion-dollar pay package. The board and shareholders approved the pay proposal in 2018, but a Delaware court in January struck it down because it said the approval process was “deeply flawed.”

IMF warns surge in U.S., China debt could have ‘profound’ impact on global economy. 

The U.S. and Chinese governments should take action to lower future borrowing, as a surge in their debts threatens to have “profound” effects on the global economy and the interest rates paid by other countries, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.

In its twice-yearly report on government borrowing, the Fund said many rich countries have adopted measures that will lead to a reduction in their debts relative to the size of their economies, although not to the levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Iran is bracing for a retaliatory Israeli attack on its territory or proxies, as the U.S. and European nations press Israel for a response that avoids an escalation in tensions caused by Tehran’s weekend missile and drone assault.
   
• Ukraine’s chances of pushing Russia out look increasingly grim. 
   
• The Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of business and academic economists shows forecasters ratcheting up their expectations for economic growth, inflation and the level of future interest rates.

• Nelson Peltz’s proxy fight at Disney had the potential to help turn around his hedge fund after a tumultuous stretch.
   
• China’s punishment for people with bad debts: No fast trains or nice hotels. 
   
• How the border surge changed the fortunes of a quiet Texas town: Eagle Pass restaurants and hotels are full of law enforcement—and its riverside park is full of razor wire.

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.

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