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The Morning Risk Report: Law Firms Branch Out Beyond Lawyers in Bid to Beat Out Rival Advisers

By David Smagalla

 

Good morning. Behavioral scientists, data experts, journalists and cops—four professions that are being brought together in, of all places, law firms. Traditionally staid law practices increasingly want to be more things to more clients, particularly in the competitive risk and compliance space, reports Risk & Compliance Journal's Richard Vanderford.

Facing competitive pressure from professional services firms and from clients that want to solve more business problems in one stop, law firms—among the most venerable American business institutions—have begun to branch out.

[Continued below...]

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“The law profession, traditionally, has been fairly traditional and not super fast at change,” said Zachary Coseglia, a lawyer at Ropes & Gray LLP. “I think that law firms are gradually appreciating that our clients desire more than just traditional legal services.”

 
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Compliance

The SEC’s letter asks Elon Musk why he didn’t make the required filing within 10 days after his Twitter stake crossed the 5% threshold. PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed it is looking into the timing of when Elon Musk notified the market that he had bought 5% of Twitter Inc.’s stock.

The SEC, in a Friday filing, published a letter sent to Mr. Musk, dated April 4, asking why he didn’t make the required filing within 10 days of crossing the 5% threshold. Mr. Musk’s holdings topped 5% on March 14, securities filings show, and he announced the size of his stake in a filing April 4, by which time it topped 9%.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the SEC investigation earlier this month. Mr. Musk hasn’t publicly explained why he didn’t file in a timely manner.

  • With Musk’s Twitter Bid in Flux, Some Tesla Fans Say Enough Already
 ‏‏‎ ‎
  • The minister who ran the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s retirement program for two decades worked with others to inflate asset values and misuse funds, the church said in a lawsuit in federal court in Tennessee.
     
  • A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit in which Donald Trump accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of abusing her authority by investigating the financial affairs of his family business.
     
  • New Environmental Protection Agency rules promise to give a significant boost to what is becoming known as the methane mitigation industry.
 

Risk

Ukrainian tanks in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, part of the Donbas area that Russia wants to capture. FRANCISCO SECO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Russian forces took parts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk on Tuesday following street fighting with Ukrainian defenders, boosting Moscow’s control over one of Kyiv’s last cities in the Donbas area, the recent focus of its Ukraine offensive.

Russia has intensified its push to take the strategically important city as Western leaders have taken new measures to punish Moscow for its invasion. The Biden administration plans to provide Ukraine with precision-guided rocket systems to boost Ukraine’s firepower against Russian troops.

  • Putin Says Russia Open to More Talks With Ukraine
  • Ukraine Renews Calls for Weapons as Zelensky Visits Troops
  • Russia Targets Ukraine’s Rail Links for Military Gains
 

A federal pandemic aid program aimed at boosting small businesses’ access to capital is getting off the ground more than a year after it was authorized, when firms are now facing the headwinds of high inflation and the growing risks of an economic downturn.

The Treasury Department this month began distributing nearly $200 million to five states through the State Small Business Credit Initiative, a $10 billion program that directs money to states, territories and tribal governments for programs that provide capital or encourage private lending. The initial money will fund venture financing in Maryland and lending to small manufacturing businesses in Michigan, among other programs.

  • Biden Pledges to Back Fed in Effort to Combat High Inflation
  • Workers’ Share of Economic Pie Isn’t Growing
 

A severe slowdown for China’s economy during a year of acute political sensitivity for Chinese leader Xi Jinping is testing the credibility of Beijing’s official economic data.

Figures this month illustrated an economy in free fall in April as lockdowns shut stores and factories, snarled logistics networks and kept millions of people cooped up at home for weeks. That bleak picture was broadly in line with the signals coming from business surveys, corporate earnings and a host of nonofficial data sources that previously pointed to a dramatic slowdown.

  • U.N. Human-Rights Chief Calls on China, Gently, to Boost Transparency in Xinjiang
 
  • European Union leaders said for the first time that they would impose an oil embargo on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, taking a big step forward in its economic fight against Moscow. The price of crude rose after the announcement. 
     
  • Across Ukraine, farmers are navigating mines, traversing bombed bridges and risking dangerous maneuvers at overworked ports to circumvent a Russian blockade and get their grains to a world desperate for them.
     
  • The American West is locked in its worst drought on record, bringing renewed water restrictions, wildfire danger and angst to one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions, just as the heat of summer approaches.
 

Audit & Accounting

Under EY’s plan, the firm would spin off its fast-growing consulting business, along with some of its tax and other advisory business. PHOTO: ALEKSANDER KALKA/ZUMA PRESS

Ernst & Young’s plan for a possible world-wide split of its audit and consulting businesses, code-named Project Everest according to people familiar with the matter, was dismissed by major rivals Friday who said they would keep their firms in one piece.

Fellow Big Four firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers issued statements defending their existing models of offering consulting and tax services alongside the bread-and-butter audit work. PwC said it has “no plans to change course,” whatever rival firms do. Deloitte said it remains committed to its current business model.

Under EY’s plan, the firm would spin off its fast-growing consulting business, along with some of its tax and other advisory business, according to people familiar with the matter. The legacy audit firm would retain certain nonaudit work, including some tax and valuation services, the people said.

 

Governance

Rivian’s factory, in Normal, Ill., where issues with suppliers have crimped the ramp-up of manufacturing. PHOTO: JAMIE KELTER DAVIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A top Rivian Automotive Inc. manufacturing executive is leaving the company as part of a broader management reshuffling, as the electric-truck startup tries to scale up output of its first three models.

Charly Mwangi, a former Tesla Inc. executive who has been Rivian’s manufacturing-engineering chief for the past two years, decided to leave the company, a spokeswoman said. In that role, Mr. Mwangi was overseeing robotics and other equipment used to build cars at Rivian’s factory, in Normal, Ill.

Rivian’s vice president of manufacturing, Tim Fallon, is remaining in that role, the spokeswoman said.

 
  • Unilever PLC said it would add activist investor Nelson Peltz to its board and disclosed that his fund now holds a 1.5% stake, moves that ratchet up pressure on the maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise to reinvigorate growth across its sprawling portfolio.
 

Operations

Keith Baldwin, a surgeon in Massachusetts, lost more than 90% of his savings in a few days when TerraUSD became unmoored from its peg to the U.S. dollar. VANESSA LEROY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

TerraUSD was touted as a blue-chip cryptocurrency. Now its investors are reeling from painful losses and asking if it was all a get-rich-quick scheme.

A surgeon in Massachusetts can’t stop thinking about how he lost his family’s nest egg. A young Ukrainian considered suicide after losing 90% of his savings. Other investors have given up dreams of starting new businesses or quitting their day jobs.

All of them were swept up in the mania for TerraUSD, whose total value swelled to $18 billion before collapsing earlier this month. The coin’s sudden downfall is a reminder that crypto—which enjoyed a huge bull market last year—is often little more than a casino, with weak regulation and few means of recourse for the losers.

  • Coinbase Leaders Net $1.2 Billion in Share Sales
 
  • A group of under-the-radar commodity traders are cashing in on Russian oil, stepping in to buy and transport crude to customers as their bigger rivals retreat from the market.
     
  • Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are recalibrating to a new reality: Investors are increasing the pressure to rein in hefty losses, riders are taking fewer trips as fares rise and drivers are still in short supply.
     
  • Companies are taking steps to cut costs and improve efficiency after many of them relied more on boosting prices in recent quarters to offset inflation and bolster their bottom lines.
 

Covid

  • The Covid-19 treatment from Pfizer Inc. has become the leading pandemic pill prescribed in the U.S., as supplies have improved and its availability at pharmacies widened.
     
  • Home testing and curbed state tracking efforts hold down closely watched Covid infection totals, making it hard to shape coronavirus strategies.

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About Us

Send comments to the Risk & Compliance editor, David Smagalla, at david.smagalla@wsj.com

Subscribe to The Morning Risk Report here.

Follow us on Twitter at @WSJRisk, @DSmagalla_DJ, @_MengqiSun, @dgtokar, and @VanderfordRich.
 
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