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The Morning Risk Report: More Tech Whistleblowers Are Expected, Experts Say
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Good morning. More employees of technology companies are coming forward with concerns and information about their workplaces following the disclosure earlier this month of the Facebook Inc. whistleblower’s identity, attorneys working on whistleblowing issues said.
“We didn’t see a ton in Silicon Valley, and suddenly we did,” said Mary Inman, an attorney representing whistleblowers at law firm Constantine Cannon LLP in San Francisco and London. “It just became more of an acceptable path to be a whistleblower; there are role models now.”
[Continued below...]
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Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, revealed herself to be the person who gathered documents that formed the basis of The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series on issues within the social-media company. She has since gone public with her allegations and testified before Congress.
“You do see that, when someone very public comes forward, you are going to end up seeing more people in the tech industry potentially considering coming forward with what they are seeing in their own company,” said Jane Norberg, former chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower office.
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Rostin Behnam, acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, at a Senate Agriculture Committee confirmation hearing Wednesday in Washington. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The acting head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Wednesday that he plans to continue aggressively policing cryptocurrency markets and called on Congress to consider expanding his agency’s authority to do so.
Rostin Behnam, the CFTC’s acting chairman, noted that the agency has settled two enforcement actions against cryptocurrency companies totaling $140 million. “But this is the tip of the iceberg,” he said in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Related: SEC Won’t Approve Leveraged Bitcoin Fund
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The Justice Department is scrutinizing Visa Inc.’s relationships with large financial-technology companies as part of its antitrust investigation of the card giant, according to people familiar with the matter.
Antitrust investigators are looking into the financial incentives that Visa gave Square Inc., Stripe Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc., the people said. Investigators want to know if those deals kept the payments firms from using other card networks or money-movement technologies, the people said.
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Federal Trade Commission staffers have begun looking into disclosures that Facebook Inc.’s internal company research had identified ill effects from its products, according to people familiar with the matter.
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A group of Senate Democrats plans to introduce legislation that would restrict the type of investments Federal Reserve officials could make and impose penalties for violating these rules or the Fed’s own new code of ethics.
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Former Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly took the stand and declared his innocence Wednesday for the last time before a Tokyo court delivers a verdict on whether he illegally helped hide former chief Carlos Ghosn’s compensation.
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The National Hockey League fined the Chicago Blackhawks $2 million and said two top officials left the team Tuesday in the wake of a damning report detailing the team’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against a coach during its 2010 Stanley Cup season.
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The European Union’s top court on Wednesday handed down a record daily fine to Poland for failing to comply with its decisions, the latest episode in an escalating fight between Brussels and Warsaw over judicial independence.
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Iran will return to nuclear talks before the end of November, its chief negotiator said Wednesday, restoring the Biden administration’s hopes that it can revive the 2015 nuclear deal.
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The London skyline at dusk. PHOTO: CHRIS RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The U.K. audit and accounting regulator said it questioned nearly 100 companies about their reporting in areas including revenue and cash flows and asked 15 of them to restate their accounts as part of an annual review of financial filings.
The Financial Reporting Council on Wednesday said it reviewed the annual reports of 246 British companies, about 39% of which it reached out to for additional information. The percentage is down from the previous year, when the FRC questioned roughly 44% of 216 businesses whose reports it analyzed.
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A Shell gas station in La Jolla, Calif. PHOTO: BING GUAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC has taken a large stake in Royal Dutch Shell PLC and is urging the oil giant to separate into two companies to retain and attract investors as many flee stocks seen as environmentally unfriendly.
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Evercore Inc. is naming John Weinberg as its sole chief executive, five years after recruiting the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker—and scion of a Wall Street dynasty—to the investment bank.
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Before he died, Ted Rogers made clear in his autobiography that he had two wishes for the telecommunications empire he had built: keep Rogers Communications Inc. under the Rogers family control and ensure someone is in charge. Events of the past few weeks have left those wishes in doubt.
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Shipping companies face a 2050 deadline set by the International Maritime Organization that seeks sharp cuts in vessels’ carbon-dioxide emissions. PHOTO: ADRIAN DENNIS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Shipping operators are under pressure from governments and big customers such as Amazon.com Inc. to clean up vessels’ carbon emissions. But viable alternatives to fossil fuels are just taking shape.
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U.S. orders for durable goods such as appliances, computers and cars decreased in September for the first time since spring, as manufacturers continued to confront higher material costs and parts and labor shortages.
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The number of workers at U.S. meatpacking plants who contracted Covid-19 and who died from the virus was significantly higher than previously known, according to a new congressional report.
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