Welcome back. The deadline for requiring U.S. workers to be vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19 is fast approaching, but uncertainty about how legal fights over the mandate will play out has left companies in limbo on how best to prepare.

Those tasked with making sure their companies comply with the Biden administration mandate will need to remain flexible as they take steps to implement rules set to take effect Jan. 4, legal and human resource experts say.

[Continued below...]

The rules issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration require private-sector employers with 100 or more workers to ensure their employees get fully vaccinated or take a weekly Covid-19 test and wear a mask at work. OSHA can issue fines against companies for noncompliance. The OSHA emergency temporary standard can stay in place for six months before it would need to be codified as a permanent standard that requires rule making.

The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans earlier this month granted an emergency stay prohibiting enforcement of the rules for now, saying they raised “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati was randomly selected on Nov. 17 to take on legal challenges to the mandate, and on Tuesday the Biden administration filed an emergency court motion seeking the immediate reinstatement of the mandate.

• Companies See Omicron Variant as Latest Unknown in a Pandemic Full of Shocks

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has recommended several measures to combat international bribery in a new report, including protections for whistleblowers, enhanced policies to address those who ask for bribes and incentives that would encourage strong corporate compliance programs.

The OECD’s Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions released its set of new recommendations to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention last week, more than a decade after its last round of recommendations were published in 2009. The adopted recommendations, while not legally binding, will now become part of the requirements for how the OECD group monitors member countries’ implementation and enforcement of the OECD antibribery convention.

The recommendations also can act as guidance for companies during the process of investigation and cooperation with law enforcement and as a benchmark for their internal controls and compliance programs, observers said.

One recommendation asks member countries to implement policies that would offer incentives, such as subsidies and export credits, to companies to develop effective compliance programs, said Drago Kos, the chair of the OECD working group.

“Clearly the new recommendation is taking stock of what has happened in the last 10 years and provides a new benchmark for both of the OECD in their monitoring of member countries and for companies that want to be upfront in this fight against corruption,” said Nicola Bonucci, a partner in the global trade and investigations and white-collar defense practices at law firm Paul Hastings LLP in Paris.

—Mengqi Sun

Danske Bank AS said Thursday that it has appointed Philippe Vollot as chief administrative officer, effective immediately, with overall responsibility for group compliance as well as first-line financial-crime prevention and financial-crime risk divisions. Mr. Vollot continues to be a member of the executive leadership team, Danske added.

The company said that since joining, Mr. Vollot has been responsible for building the group compliance organization by hiring the necessary expertise and developing a solid organizational structure together with a comprehensive financial-crime plan.

"To further improve the execution of our financial-crime plan... all responsibilities for the overall implementation of our financial-crime control environment across the bank will be gathered with one member of the executive leadership team," the company said.

The head of Instagram is scheduled to testify before Congress next month to respond to mounting questions about the app’s effects on younger users, sparked by a Wall Street Journal investigation, an aide to Sen. Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, support for curbing large technology companies’ market power is widening in the Senate, with lawmakers in both parties endorsing new legal constraints on search engines, e-marketplaces, app stores and other online platforms.

• EU Pushes to Limit How Tech Companies Target Political Ads

Interpol, the global law enforcement body, elected as president an Emirati official accused by human-rights groups of involvement in torture, defying objections from Western officials who say authoritarian governments have exploited the group in recent years.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi won the race to become Interpol’s president, an unpaid and largely ceremonial post that nonetheless holds some sway over the body. As president, he will wield one vote on the 13-member executive committee, which is also being elected Thursday.

• As Interpol Picks New Leaders, Questions Grow Over How Autocratic Nations Use It

• Peloton Interactive Inc. sued Lululemon Athletica Inc., asking a federal court to declare that it didn’t infringe on athletic designs, weeks after Lululemon sent a cease-and-desist letter over the bike company’s new clothing line.
   
• China’s tech giants are feeling the pinch of an economic slowdown, adding financial pressure to an industry beset by a bevy of new regulations this year. Meanwhile, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s chief executive, Daniel Zhang, is devolving power to the heads of the company’s business units to become more agile in tackling rising challenges and potentially open the way for spinoffs, people familiar with the matter said.
   
• The pharmaceutical industry is bracing for the most significant expansion of government regulation of drug prices in decades despite success in watering down proposals from congressional Democrats that would have gone much further.
   
• The reliability of memory is expected to be a big part of the coming criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, which is poised to hinge on testimony of women who say the British socialite helped financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse them decades ago.
   
• Australia said on Sunday that it would introduce legislation to make social-media companies liable for defamatory comments published on their platforms, in a move that risks exposing tech companies to future lawsuits.

London wants to regain the mantle of the world’s busiest financial center from New York by overhauling how banks and other financial firms are regulated after Brexit.

The U.K. government said this month its top financial regulators will be required to help boost growth and international competitiveness in the financial sector, as secondary mandates to existing tasks such as maintaining financial stability and consumer protection.

The changes would in effect give regulatory agencies a freer hand to rewrite rules on topics such as initial-public offerings, green finance and cryptocurrencies.

• A group of Senate Democrats have privately voiced their opposition to President Biden’s nomination of Saule Omarova to become a top banking regulator, likely scuttling the academic’s chances of confirmation.
   
• President Biden’s decision to nominate Lael Brainard to become Federal Reserve vice chairwoman elevates a veteran policy maker and economist who has been a strong ally of Chairman Jerome Powell on the central bank’s boldest policy decisions during the pandemic.
   
• Casino stocks fell and share trading of junket operator Suncity Group Holdings Ltd. was suspended Monday morning after its chairman was held by police over allegations of illegal gambling and money laundering.
   
• Australia’s regulator of financial institutions won’t require the country’s banks to raise extra capital as part of its finalized new system to strengthen financial system resilience. (Dow Jones Newswires)

Jamie Dimon apologized Wednesday for joking that JPMorgan Chase & Co. would outlast China’s Communist Party.

Mr. Dimon said on Wednesday morning that he regretted remarks he made Tuesday during an event at Boston College, in response to an audience question about doing business in China.

“I was just in Hong Kong and I made a joke that the Communist Party is celebrating its hundredth year. So is JPMorgan. I’d make you a bet we last longer,” Mr. Dimon said Tuesday, according to a video recording viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

• A tense succession battle is taking shape at publisher Scholastic Corp. in the wake of the death this summer of its longtime boss, Richard Robinson.
   
• Lee Enterprises Inc. said its board has approved a shareholder rights plan, also known as a poison pill, that would prevent hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC from acquiring more than 10% of the company as it considers Alden’s hostile bid for the newspaper publisher.
   
• Activist investor Ancora Holdings Inc. is pushing Berry Global Group Inc., a packaging manufacturer with a roughly $9 billion market value, to explore a sale.

The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency left Iran late Tuesday after failing to reach a deal to allow inspectors access to a factory making equipment for Tehran’s nuclear program, diplomats said Wednesday, casting a fresh shadow over international nuclear talks set for next week.

Meanwhile, Israel warns White House over striking partial nuclear deal with Iran

• The biggest export out of Southern California these days is air. And it is suffocating the supply chain.
   
• Orders for long-lasting goods such as appliances, cars and computers decreased for the second straight month in October as U.S. manufacturers continued to confront higher material and shipping costs as well as labor and parts shortages.
   
• Climate protesters blockaded 13 Amazon.com Inc. facilities in the U.K., as well as two more in Germany and the Netherlands, snarling trucks in some locales, in a bid to disrupt operations on the busiest day of Amazon’s year in terms of online orders.

Subscribe to The Morning Risk Report here.

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