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The Morning Risk Report: Ex-Coinbase Staffer Pleads Guilty in First Crypto Insider-Trading Case
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Ishan Wahi, 32 years old, told U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska that he had conspired with others to misappropriate valuable confidential information that he gained from his job at Coinbase. His brother, Nikhil Wahi, and an associate then used that information to make trades on digital tokens, he said.
'Serious federal crime': Judge Preska set Mr. Wahi’s sentencing for May 10. While Judge Preska will determine the sentence, lawyers for both sides agreed appropriate sentencing guidelines recommended 37 to 46 months in prison.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a written statement that Mr. Wahi was the first insider to admit guilt in an insider-trading case involving the cryptocurrency markets. “Whether it occurs in the equity markets or the crypto markets, stealing confidential business information for your own personal profit or the profit of others is a serious federal crime,” Mr. Williams said.
SEC priority shift: The guilty plea in the Coinbase case comes as the Securities and Exchange Commission in its 2023 list of examination priorities published on Tuesday took note of "recent financial distress" among crypto market participants and added that it would focus its attention on crypto companies it hadn't looked at before.
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Technology Companies Lead on Climate Concern, Action
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Tech company leaders are more worried about climate change than those in other industries and they are tackling carbon reduction more aggressively, including driving their value chains to decarbonize. Read More ›
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The Treasury Department says it received a petition from the new owner of the former Sberbank subsidiary to remove the entity from the sanctions list, and it agreed to do so.
PHOTO: JON ELSWICK/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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U.S. to remove sanctions on former Kazakhstan subsidiary of Russia’s Sberbank. The U.S. Treasury Department said it would remove the sanctions because the entity is now wholly owned by a Kazakh company.
Change of hands: The entity, previously called Subsidiary Bank Sberbank of Russia Joint Stock Co., is a commercial bank in Kazakhstan and was sanctioned as a foreign subsidiary of Sberbank last February, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. National Managing Holding Co. Baiterek, a company owned by Kazakhstan’s government, on Sept. 1 bought over 99% of the shares in the former Sberbank subsidiary, the Treasury Department said. Baiterek changed the entity’s name to Bereke Bank Joint Stock Co. and replaced its board.
Sanctions pressure: The unusual step made by the U.S. to remove the former subsidiary from the sanctions list highlights the impact of sanctions on Russia as Sberbank was forced to divest itself of some assets. The sanctions delisting will be effective on March 6.
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ABA passes resolution opposing suspicious-transaction reporting rule for lawyers. The U.S.’s influential national legal association passed the resolution arguing such a move would violate longstanding principles around client confidentiality.
The resolution, passed by the American Bar Association’s policy arm, echoes a position the trade group’s president laid out in letters to Congressional leaders last year amid a push by some lawmakers and anticorruption groups to pass legislation that would have imposed stringent anti-money-laundering requirements on lawyers.
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Prosecutors charge Russian who managed oligarch's U.S. properties. A U.S. permanent resident who managed Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg's properties in Florida and New York has been charged with money laundering and sanctions evasion after fleeing the U.S., federal prosecutors said.
Oligarch crackdown. It follows unsealed indictments announced by the Justice Department in January charging two Russian businessmen with crimes related to their work managing the operations of a yacht owned by Mr. Vekselberg. Another indictment unsealed last month charged former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Charles McGonigal with accepting secret payments from Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska.
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The Commerce Department plans to release details on how companies can apply for subsidies to help expand domestic semiconductor production under the Chips Act later this month, setting off a race among U.S. and foreign manufacturers vying to get a piece of $52.7 billion in federal funds.
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Several federal agencies are looking to tighten their ethics rules, while others have directed their internal watchdogs to investigate suspicious investing by officials, as lawmakers continue to press for tougher trading restrictions across the federal government.
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An earlier satellite image shows what analysts believe is construction on an intercontinental ballistic missile silo near Hami, China. PHOTO: PLANET LABS INC./ASSOCIATED PRESS
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China has more ICBM launchers than U.S. The U.S. military has notified Congress that China now has more land-based intercontinental-range missile launchers than the U.S., fueling the debate about how Washington should respond to Beijing’s nuclear buildup.
Widening threat. The notification comes as the U.S. is facing the challenge of deterring Russia’s substantial nuclear forces as well as China’s growing nuclear arsenal. U.S. lawmakers are involved in an increasingly heated debate about how best to counter Beijing, including the Pentagon’s response to the Chinese surveillance balloon that recently traversed the U.S. and hovered over Montana, where a portion of the American military’s ICBM arsenal is deployed.
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U.S. trade deficit hit record in 2022. The U.S. posted its largest trade deficit on record last year, as global demand weakened amid high inflation, climbing interest rates, disruptions due to the Ukraine war and the pandemic’s continued effects.
Mixed bag. Economists said lower U.S. imports late last year reflected cooling consumer spending. Other recent reports have painted a mixed U.S. economic picture as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to battle inflation by slowing growth.
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Russian forces launched several attacks in eastern Ukraine, pushing for a breakthrough on the battlefield ahead of the delivery of new Western weapons, although the U.K. cast doubt on the prospects for a major Russian offensive.
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Snowfall, freezing temperatures and blocked roads hindered efforts Tuesday to respond to two powerful earthquakes that killed more than 7,500 people in southern Turkey and northern Syria, leading Turkey’s president to declare a three-month state of emergency in affected areas.
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CVS, the parent of its namesake pharmacies, has signaled that primary care and home-based care are growth areas for the company. PHOTO: GABBY JONES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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CVS nearing deal for primary-care provider. CVS Health Corp. is close to an agreement to acquire Oak Street Health Inc. for about $10.5 billion including debt, a deal that would rapidly expand the healthcare company’s footprint of primary-care doctors with a network of senior-focused clinics, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Expanding further into medical care. The agreement would come on the heels of CVS’s $8 billion agreement to acquire home-care provider Signify Health Inc. Together, the two acquisitions would push CVS, the parent of its namesake pharmacies as well as the huge Aetna health-insurance operation and a pharmacy-benefit manager, far deeper into the direct provision of healthcare.
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Coinbase Global, which placed this ad in New York’s Times Square in 2021, has introduced a new slogan that urges consumers to ‘Ignore the noise. Keep building.’
PHOTO: SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
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Crypto brands reposition themselves in wake of FTX and market tumble. Roughly one year ago, a handful of crypto heavyweights made swaggering debuts on the Super Bowl ad roster, airing costly commercials with messages like “Don’t miss out” (FTX) and “Fortune favors the brave” (Crypto.com). Then came the swoon in crypto and the bankruptcy of FTX.
Rethinking their approach. Now, companies across the sector are using marketing and public-relations efforts to defend their brands, distance themselves from dubious players like FTX and, in many cases, present a friendlier face to investors and regulators alike
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