|
|
|
|
|
The Morning Risk Report: Kroger to End Some Covid-19 Benefits for Unvaccinated Workers
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good morning. Kroger Co. is eliminating some Covid-19 benefits for unvaccinated employees, a move to encourage inoculations as the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate faces legal challenges.
The Cincinnati-based grocery chain told employees last week that it will no longer provide two weeks of paid emergency leave for unvaccinated employees who contract Covid-19, unless local jurisdictions require otherwise. Kroger also will add a $50 monthly surcharge to company health plans for unvaccinated managers and other nonunion employees, according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Both policies are effective Jan. 1, the memo said.
[Continued below...]
|
|
|
Kroger, one of the biggest employers in the U.S. with almost half a million full-time and part-time employees, is tightening pandemic-related policies for workers as U.S. businesses face continued uncertainty over federal vaccination mandates. Rules issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in November require employers with 100 or more workers to ensure employees are vaccinated or take weekly Covid-19 tests by Jan. 4.
Whether those rules, which were targeted by lawsuits across the country, will take effect is uncertain. Last week, a U.S. court blocked the plan to mandate vaccines for federal contractors. General Electric Co. and others have since suspended vaccine requirements for employees. A federal appeals court in Cincinnati is considering whether to reinstate the administration’s rules for employers.
Related:
|
|
|
|
FinCEN Seeks Comments on How to Update Anti-Money-Laundering Regime
|
|
The U.S. Treasury Department is asking the public for comments on how to modernize and streamline requirements under the U.S. anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime so it can continue to efficiently protect American national-security interests.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, issued the request for information Tuesday. The Treasury’s anti-money-laundering unit said responses would also support the agency’s ongoing formal review of Bank Secrecy Act regulations and guidance mandated by the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. The sweeping legislation, which became law earlier this year, asked the Treasury secretary to seek public comment and submit a report to Congress by Jan. 1, 2022.
“We recognize that the illicit finance threat landscape continues to evolve and that technology and innovation now play an important role in the efficient application of resources to combat illicit finance,” FinCEN Acting Director Himamauli Das said in a statement.
FinCEN is seeking answers to 26 questions across topics including ones related to reports and records highly useful in combating financial crimes, as well as redundant regulations. The public has until Feb. 14 to submit comments.
—Mengqi Sun
|
|
|
From Risk & Compliance Journal
|
|
|
Another Son of Ex-Panama President Pleads Guilty in Odebrecht Bribery Case
|
|
Another son of former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli pleaded guilty to a U.S. charge related to his role in a bribery scheme involving Brazil’s Odebrecht SA.
Ricardo Alberto Martinelli on Tuesday entered a guilty plea to a single money laundering conspiracy charge at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was charged in 2020 alongside his brother Luis Enrique Martinelli, who pleaded guilty earlier this month.
|
|
|
|
|
The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that trading in the shares of a company about to be acquired drew from communications the investor had with his brother-in-law. PHOTO: ARIEL ZAMBELICH/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
|
The Securities and Exchange Commission suffered a rare defeat in an insider-trading case, with a judge finding the regulator failed to prove a Virginia mortgage banker traded on illicit tips.
A federal judge in northern Virginia on Monday dismissed the civil fraud case against Christopher J. Clark, whose bullish and risky trades just before a 2017 acquisition were spotted by regulators’ high-powered surveillance databases. The SEC alleged Mr. Clark’s brother-in-law, a former corporate accounting officer, told him days before the deal that Gartner Inc. IT would buy CEB Inc.
|
|
|
-
Democratic members of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are pushing to review regulations around big-bank mergers, showing the Biden administration’s wider concern with such tie-ups.
-
Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group is exploring a potential sale or closure of its controversial spyware unit, according to a person familiar with the matter.
-
President Biden plans to nominate Sandra Thompson to become the permanent director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the White House said, tapping a career regulator to head the agency responsible for overseeing mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
-
Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google hold a “vise-like grip” over how people use mobile devices, Britain’s antitrust regulator said Tuesday, adding it was assessing whether to try to loosen what it said was their control over smartphone ecosystems.
-
Chinese authorities said they have fined social-media giant Weibo Corp. millions of dollars for a string of infractions, the second time in two weeks that Beijing has announced the punishment of a major internet platform amid a further tightening of controls online.
-
Harvard chemistry professor Charles Lieber went on federal trial in Boston Tuesday over whether he misled the U.S. Defense Department and others about his relationship with a Chinese university, testing the government’s policing of U.S.-China collaborations after a similar case ended in an acquittal earlier this year.
|
|
|
|
|
The higher-than-expected producer-price numbers suggest that consumer inflation will stay elevated into 2022. PHOTO: WILL OLIVER/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
|
|
|
|
Prices that suppliers are charging businesses and other customers leapt in November, signaling that broad-based price pressures are still building throughout the U.S. supply chain.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that its producer-price index rose 9.6% in November from a year earlier, the most since records began in 2010. The so-called core PPI, which excludes often volatile food and energy components, climbed 7.7% from a year ago, also the highest on record.
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Neidorff has been Centene’s CEO since 1996. PHOTO: JEFF ROBERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
|
-
Managed-care provider Centene Corp. said its long-serving Chief Executive Michael Neidorff will retire next year, and the company will name five new board members amid pressure from activist hedge fund Politan Capital Management LP.
-
French luxury group Chanel SA poached consumer-goods executive Leena Nair to become its chief executive, reaching outside the fashion market for leadership as it strives to recover from the industry’s pandemic slump.
-
More than a dozen of some of the world’s richest people have joined a pledge to donate a majority of their wealth to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
|
|
|
|
|
Starbucks employees and supporters held a union-election watch party in Buffalo on Thursday. PHOTO: JOSHUA BESSEX/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
|
-
Starbucks Corp. workers at two locations in the Boston area want to unionize, days after workers at a store in Buffalo, N.Y., voted in favor of unionizing and a sign that attempts to organize at Starbucks stores are spreading across the country.
,
-
The Wirecutter Union said it has reached a deal on its first collective bargaining agreement with the New York Times Co. after staffers for the product-review site went on strike last month during the busy holiday shopping season.
-
Apple Inc. stores across the U.S. are returning to requiring masks as Covid-19 cases surge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|