Good morning. Epic Games Inc. has agreed to pay $520 million to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that the “Fortnite” videogame developer violated online privacy protections for children and tricked players into making unintended purchases.

The FTC said the agreement consisted of two record-breaking settlements that resolve a pair of civil complaints it was filing against Epic. One, filed in federal court, alleged the company violated the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal information from “Fortnite” players under the age of 13 without notifying their parents or obtaining verifiable parental consent.

That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling real-time voice and text chat communications for children and teens in the game by default. Further, the FTC said Epic put those users at risk by connecting them with strangers, and as a result, some were “bullied, threatened, harassed and exposed to dangerous and psychologically traumatizing issues such as suicide.”

The settlement comes as supporters of tougher tech regulation make a final push to eke out a few wins before Congress adjourns for the year, and big technology companies respond with their own advertising blitz. 

Tech companies have built a perfect record so far in blocking major legislation in Congress that could impede their business interests, with the help of prodigious spending on Beltway lobbying and grass-roots politicking.

The FTC, Labor Department and other agencies are also taking aim at big tech companies, and major bills in Congress to establish online privacy protections, impose legal liability on social media for their content and toughen antitrust rules remain on the table. But the odds of this legislation passing are diminishing quickly, advocates on both sides say.

Significant measures with the best chances of passing heading into the home stretch include two narrowly targeted bills: one to enhance children’s online protections and the other to limit the gatekeeper powers of Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google over smartphone apps.

Biden White House officials—eager to avoid a shutout on tech regulation—have joined lawmakers in lobbying for passage, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Honeywell strikes deal over Brazil, Algeria bribery. Honeywell International Inc. will pay nearly $203 million to resolve investigations in the U.S. and Brazil into bribes paid to public officials in Algeria and at Brazil’s state-owned oil company, the company said Monday.

The settlements involve UOP, a U.S. subsidiary of Honeywell that manufactures catalysts used to refine oil. Investigations found that UOP had conspired to pay bribes to a former high-level Petróleo Brasileiro SA official to obtain a $425 million oil refinery contract, authorities said. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also found that Honeywell’s Belgian subsidiary had paid bribes to Algerian officials to win business with Algerian state-owned oil company Sonatrach.

Honeywell on Friday admitted the allegations and entered into a series of agreements with the SEC and U.S. Justice Department, as well as with authorities in Brazil. U.S. authorities accused UOP of violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the settlements require Honeywell to make compliance overhauls and file periodic reports.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has agreed to be extradited, according to a person familiar with the matter, and plans were being fleshed out by his legal team after the day’s court proceedings. Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers hope to have a new hearing on the matter as early as Tuesday, the person said.

Whistleblower sets record for the year. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded more than $37 million to an individual for reporting information about a bribery scheme at a large European healthcare company, Risk & Compliance Journal’s Mengqi Sun reports.

The sum is the highest award paid out to a single whistleblower so far this calendar year and one of the top 10 largest awards ever paid out by the SEC’s whistleblower program to an individual, according to the SEC.

In other compliance-related news...

• Cellphone carriers facing roughly $200 million in fines for sharing their customers’ locations are for now shielded from paying by the Federal Communications Commission’s partisan deadlock, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• The European Union charged Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. with antitrust violations for allegedly distorting competition by tying its online classified-ad service to its social network.
   
• The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol voted to refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department for four potential criminal charges, culminating its 18-month probe.

U.K. companies tested by Ukraine war. Europe has been hit hard by the fallout from the war in Ukraine, putting its companies on the front line of what has become a war of economic attrition between the West and Russia that is playing out alongside the real war in Ukraine.

The U.K. is suffering more than other big countries in Europe, economists say. Inflation is running in the double digits, higher than all of its Group of Seven industrialized peers with the exception of Italy; gross domestic product shrank 0.2% in the third quarter year-over-year, setting the U.K. on course for a likely recession. Other big economies like Germany and France are increasingly looking like they may avoid one. The British economy is widely forecast to shrink in 2023, faring worse than every G-20 economy except Russia, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says.

“We’re in incredibly tough times,” said John Kelly, founder of the Kirkstall Brewery in Leeds, where at least one other beer-maker went bust in recent weeks. “Consumer confidence is zero. We face skyrocketing costs, and there’s no way we can pass even 50% of that onto our customers.”

He has embroiled himself in a series of controversial statements and decisions at the social-media platform that have alienated some users and advertisers, compounding financial problems at a company he bought in a deal valued at $44 billion in late October. Meanwhile, some shareholders in Tesla Inc., which he also runs, have complained that he is distracted by Twitter at the same time the electric-vehicle maker’s share price has been falling and he has been selling parts of his stake.

Businesses struggle to find accountants. A deepening shortage of accountants is driving a growing number of companies to raise salaries or seek temporary help to strengthen their finance teams amid a slowing economy.

Many employers over the past decade have struggled to find qualified workers, a challenge accelerated by a decline in the number of job seekers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. labor force has been shrinking since early 2020, as more baby boomers retire.

Companies’ accounting and finance departments in particular, which are crucial for managing financial operations, internal controls and financial reporting, are suffering from the lack of personnel. Fewer people are pursuing degrees in accounting and starting new jobs in this area, resulting in more open positions for related roles and searches that take longer to complete. And digitization and automation aren’t expected to fill the gap.