Good morning. More than a decade after a global financial crisis and the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme led to the establishment of two whistleblower award programs in the U.S., more U.S. regulators and other agencies worldwide are seeing the benefits of paying individuals for helpful information, signaling a change in momentum on the debate.

Regulators both inside and outside the U.S. in recent years have adopted or are looking to establish their own cash-for-tips programs, as those in the U.S. become a mainstream part of enforcement efforts.

• Recent movements: In early March the U.S. Justice Department said it would start a pilot program that would pay whistleblowers who tell prosecutors about corporate crime, adding a new incentive to attract more tipsters to aid in the government’s enforcement efforts. A similar whistleblower award program has been proposed by lawmakers for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the U.K., the Serious Fraud Office, which investigates white-collar crime, also recently said it would explore the establishment of a whistleblower reward program under its new director.
   
• Gaining momentum: These recent developments, policy observers and whistleblower attorneys say, illustrate how far programs that pay whistleblowers have come as the public welcomes the increased transparency brought by insiders that hold companies accountable and disclose wrongdoing. “There seems to be a growing recognition that these programs work, if whistleblowers are paid,” said David Kovel, a co-managing partner at law firm Kirby McInerney in New York who represents whistleblowers.
   
• Holdouts on the issue: Regulators in the European Union encourage whistleblowing but are hesitant to pay for information. And in Germany, there is often unease with the concept of whistleblowing.

Combative billionaire’s bank accused of bribing a Texas Democrat. 

Over three decades, Ricardo Salinas Pliego became one of Mexico’s richest men with a mix of political connections and tough tactics. Now, his bank is at the center of a U.S. federal indictment accusing a Texas congressman of accepting bribes.

U.S. federal prosecutors say a Mexican bank channeled $238,000 in bribes disguised as consulting fees to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D., Texas) to further the bank’s interests in Washington by influencing U.S. anti-money-laundering legislation, according to an indictment unsealed Friday in Houston. The lender in question was Salinas Pliego’s Banco Azteca, according to a U.S. official.

Oklahoma court halts enforcement of anti-ESG law targeting BlackRock, JPMorgan. 

An Oklahoma judge granted a temporary injunction that will halt enforcement of an anti-ESG law that prevents the state from doing business with banks and asset managers accused of boycotting the oil and gas industry.

BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are among the firms that landed on Oklahoma's blacklist, first published last year after the state's Energy Discrimination Elimination Act was signed into law. Entities including the state treasury and some pension plans sought exemptions to the law, saying it was complex and expensive to cut ties with some of the world's largest financial firms.

• Defunct crypto exchange FTX said it will have more than enough money to fully repay its millions of swindled customers with interest, an outcome that seemed unthinkable when it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022.
   
• Intel said its revenue for the current quarter would be lower than previously expected amid new restrictions on sales by chip makers to Huawei Technologies.
   
• Federal criminal investigators are looking at whether the crew or companies behind the cargo ship that destroyed a Baltimore bridge violated a centuries-old seaman’s manslaughter statute, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• U.S. spy agencies will limit how they buy and use troves of data about Americans gleaned from thousands of smartphone apps and personal devices such as cars and internet-connected household appliances, according to a new policy directive released Wednesday.

U.S. stalls weapons shipment to Israel in bid to stop Rafah offensive.

In its clearest public rebuke to date of Israel’s war in Gaza, the White House said it has halted a shipment of bombs to Israel and is reviewing other proposed arms deals, hoping to force Israel to rethink its military assault on Rafah.

The Biden administration said late Tuesday it had paused a shipment of weapons that included different types of munitions, including 2,000-pound bombs. U.S. officials also said they were conducting a review of other weapons sales amid Israel’s operations in Rafah launched late Monday, after Hamas agreed to the rough outlines of a deal that could release hostages for a cease-fire.

• Israel Presses On in Rafah Amid Diplomatic Tensions and Deepening Humanitarian Crisis
• Palestinians Thought a Cease-Fire Had Been Clinched. Then the Tanks Rolled In.
• Democrats Brace for Gaza War Protests at Convention in Chicago

• Sweden’s central bank lowered its key interest rate for the first time in more than eight years on Wednesday, underlining the readiness of European policy makers to move ahead of the Federal Reserve as inflation cools.

• Executives at truck leasing company Ryder System spent years listening to some of their biggest customers say they wanted to switch to battery-electric big rigs. Now that the heavy-duty trucks are available, the company says, few customers want to pay for them.
   
• West Virginia shares a demographic dilemma afflicting many parts of the country: an aging population and unfilled jobs. Decades of migration out of Appalachia have left West Virginia older, less educated and less able to work than other parts of the U.S. Some other states have sought immigrants to shore up their workforces. But while West Virginia represents one extreme in its labor needs, it represents another in its resistance to immigration.
   
• Neuralink encountered a problem with the implant in its first human patient, Noland Arbaugh, that reduced the amount of data it could capture from his brain, according to a blog post the company published on Wednesday.

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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