Good morning. Wall Street’s top regulator on Friday brought in $218 million in fines, roughly equal to 10% of its latest annual budget. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission closed out its fiscal year with a surge of civil-enforcement actions, a regular year-end occurrence for a regulator that measures its impact by the fines it levies. 

Fines levied today include:

• Off-channel communications: A group of 10 brokerage firms and money managers accused of breaking recordkeeping rules agreed to pay a total of $79 million to the SEC.
   
• Obstructing whistleblowers: Risk & Compliance Journal's Mengqi Sun reports that D.E. Shaw agreed to pay $10 million to settle allegations the hedge fund’s employment agreements and separation releases with employees contained language preventing whistleblowers from coming forward.

Record haul in 2023? In the fiscal year 2022, the SEC pulled in a record $6.4 billion in monetary sanctions. The regulator will likely put out 2023 numbers within the next month or two, and it remains to be seen if the enforcement haul will match or exceed last year’s total.

The WSJ Pro Sustainable Business Forum on Oct. 12 will include a discussion about risk and resilience in corporate sustainability programs with Maryam Golnaraghi, director of climate change and environment at The Geneva Association, and Torolf Hamm, head of physical catastrophe and climate risk management at Willis Towers Watson.

Other sessions will cover reporting to U.S. and European standards, the role of artificial intelligence and what corporate decarbonization measures are proving effective. Register here.

China blocks executive at U.S. firm Kroll from leaving the mainland.

A senior executive at U.S. risk advisory firm Kroll has been barred from leaving mainland China for the past two months, heightening concerns about the risks foreign companies face when doing business in the country.

Chinese authorities have taken an increasingly tough stance on foreign businesses this year. Authorities have raided the offices of due-diligence firm Mintz Group, questioned the staff of U.S. consulting firm Bain & Co., and implemented strict new data rules. These moves have damaged American businesses’ confidence in China, which is at its lowest level in decades.

Shinhan Bank’s U.S. unit to pay $25 million over alleged compliance faults.

The U.S. unit of South Korea’s Shinhan Bank has agreed to pay $25 million to settle investigations by U.S. regulators into alleged compliance problems, reports Risk & Compliance Journal's Richard Vanderford. 

Shinhan Bank America, a New York-based subsidiary of one of South Korea’s most important financial groups, entered into settlements with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the New York State Department of Financial Services, the agencies said Friday.

• Albemarle has agreed to pay more than $218 million to settle an investigation into bribes paid by third-party sales representatives.
   
• The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Newell Brands as well as its former chief executive officer with misleading investors over financial-accounting practices.
   
• French prosecutors are investigating a deal between French billionaire Bernard Arnault and a Russian businessman for possible money laundering.
   
• The private-equity industry is pushing back against plans by antitrust enforcers to scrutinize more proposed mergers, saying these efforts violate the law and will hurt the economy.
   
• The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether state laws regulating content moderation practices of social-media platforms violate the First Amendment.
   
• The Supreme Court returns to the bench Monday for a term that conservative activists hope will bring new constraints on federal power.
   
• Federal prosecutors charged an Internal Revenue Service contractor with stealing the tax returns of former President Donald Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans and leaking them to news organizations.

Congress stopped a shutdown, but fights on Ukraine, border intensify.

Republicans and Democrats set aside sharp policy differences to avoid a government shutdown. Now, they have just weeks to resolve fights over aid to Ukraine, heading off a surge in border crossings and the overall size of the federal government.

The surprise weekend votes to fund federal operations through mid-November avoided a partial closure that would have furloughed workers and risked delaying paychecks. But Congress did nothing to resolve the country’s pressing fights on spending levels, aid to Kyiv or immigration policy—it merely deferred them.

China comes under growing pressure to fix the country’s housing market.

Pressure is building on Beijing to intervene more forcefully to restore confidence in its reeling property market.

Latest wrinkle. In the latest sign of stress for the market, people with knowledge of Beijing’s decision-making said authorities are investigating whether Hui Ka Yan, the billionaire founder of heavily indebted property developer China Evergrande Group, attempted to transfer assets offshore while the company was struggling to complete unfinished projects.

• Evergrande’s New Woes Signal Long Slog for China’s Economy

• Small-business bankruptcy filings are rising this year, a signal that increased interest rates, tighter lending standards and higher operating costs are straining entrepreneurs.
   
• Underlying inflation cooled notably this summer, with price pressures moderating for a third consecutive month in August. If that continues this fall, it would strengthen the case for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates.
   
• U.S. political fights and presidential-election campaign rhetoric are casting a shadow over battlefields in Ukraine.
   
• Patti Poppe has staked her legacy at California utility PG&E on a pledge to bury power lines to reduce wildfire risk. Now, her plan is in jeopardy.
   
• A surge in interest rates likely worsened unrealized losses on bonds and loans held by U.S. banks in the third quarter, further straining their balance sheets as they face pressure to pay more to keep depositors.
   
• Many of the cranes crowding skylines from Phoenix to Denver and Dallas will soon come down. They are likely to stay down for a long time.

Cybersecurity budgets grow, but at a slower pace.

Cybersecurity budgets have largely been protected from the worst consequences of economic uncertainty, but have hardly been untouched by wider trims to company spending.

Security, however, is one area where companies appear not to have significantly lowered spending, amid a febrile threat environment that has seen significant attacks against organizations of all sizes in recent years.

• Lawmakers averted a government shutdown in a dramatic day on Capitol Hill, passing legislation with bipartisan backing to extend funding through mid-November.
   
• Consumers should be spending less by now. Interest rates are up. Inflation remains high. Pandemic savings have shrunk. And the labor market is cooling. Yet household spending, the primary driver of the nation’s economic growth, remains robust.
   
• European leaders face a question they had hoped to avoid: If the U.S. steps back from leading Western support for Ukraine, could they fill the gap?
   
• Bill Ackman has amassed nearly 800,000 followers on X by broadcasting his thoughts on topics ranging from how to end the war in Ukraine to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial stance on vaccines. Now, the investor might take his enthusiasm for the Elon Musk-owned platform to the next level.
   
• After rapidly adding women, minorities and first-time directors, big company boards are pulling back.
   
• Two experts square off on whether CEOs should feel free to weigh in on hot-button issues.

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.