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The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Officials Work to Sell Tough New Policies at Annual Antibribery Conference
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Good morning. U.S. officials this week offered their vision for continued, aggressive enforcement of a powerful antibribery law during a two-day conference in National Harbor, Md., even as they were confronted with questions–and sometimes skepticism–around a slate of tough new policies.
Nicole Argentieri, the newly appointed acting principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division, lauded prosecutors and agents for achieving several notable corporate resolutions over the past year, despite being “largely grounded for over a year by a global pandemic.”
Ms. Argentieri oversees the fraud section, which enforces the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a statute that prohibits companies from paying bribes to gain a business advantage. “It bears stating the obvious—to make foreign corruption cases, you kind of have to be able to go where the work is, something we were unable to do for some time,” she said during a speech on Thursday.
Her remarks followed those of Glenn Leon, the chief of the fraud section, who on Wednesday said that prosecutors remain busy despite an acknowledgment by the department’s deputy attorney general of data showing a general decline in corporate cases over the past decade.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in September announced a set of revisions and ongoing reforms to how the Justice Department handles corporate crime, part of an effort by the Biden administration to drive up cases. Officials in National Harbor this week sought to defend and explain those policies, including one that seeks to push companies to claw back compensation from executives involved in wrongdoing.
“Is the company walking with its wallet?” said David Last, the chief of the fraud section’s FCPA unit, at the conference. “Is it showing that there might be impacts, there might be consequences for executives, with respect to executive compensation, if misconduct occurs at the company?”
Mr. Last acknowledged that the push to influence executive compensation could raise issues with employment laws outside the U.S., but he urged companies to find workarounds. “It’s companies that are finding paths and finding solutions to address these issues that I think are in a really good spot,” he said.
–Dylan Tokar
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Going Green: Accounting and Reporting for Environmental Credits
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Environmental credits can help entities accomplish their carbon emissions reduction targets and goals, although valid accounting and reporting questions can emerge. Read More ›
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Rostin Behnam, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, arrives for a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing. PHOTO: TING SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Lawmakers should pass legislation that would impose strict rules on cryptocurrency exchanges, including rules to limit or prohibit the conflicts of interest that contributed to FTX’s collapse, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam said Thursday.
Speaking to members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Mr. Behnam said he still supported a bill that would give his small agency authority to police trading in bitcoin, ether and other digital assets classified as commodities. FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, also lobbied in support of the legislation before the firm’s collapse last month.
The immediate future of the legislation is unknown. FTX’s support of the bill raises questions about its influence over it.
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The Federal Reserve’s new regulatory chief on Thursday signaled plans to beef up big-bank capital requirements, potentially revisiting financial rules that were eased during the Trump administration.
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Lawyers in the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud case made their final pitches to a New York jury Thursday, with defense attorneys portraying a scheme to evade taxes as confined to a rogue employee and prosecutors calling it a deliberate corporate practice.
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A biotechnology company accused Citadel Securities LLC, Susquehanna International Group LLP and other Wall Street firms of driving down its stock price through a series of illicit trading tactics.
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Dozens of Uvalde shooting survivors sued responding officers and others in a Texas federal court, seeking $27 billion in damages, for taking more than an hour to stop the gunman.
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Four leading Chinese solar-cell manufacturers circumvented U.S. tariffs by routing some of their operations through Southeast Asia, a Commerce Department investigation found.
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A still from an ABC News interview of Sam Bankman-Fried that aired Thursday. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried said he made no effort to manage risk at the digital-asset exchange that filed for bankruptcy in November, Risk & Compliance Journal's Richard Vanderford reports.
“I wasn’t even trying, like, I wasn’t spending any time or effort trying to manage risk on FTX,” Mr. Bankman-Fried said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that was broadcast Thursday on “Good Morning America.”
Mr. Bankman-Fried, who stepped down as FTX’s chief executive as the company filed for bankruptcy, agreed to be interviewed for nearly two hours, defying the advice of his lawyers, Mr. Stephanopoulos said. The televised appearance marked Mr. Bankman-Fried’s second on-camera appearance in two days, as he continued to offer public explanations for FTX’s collapse.
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Americans fear Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to instability in Europe and even spur China to make a similar assault on Taiwan, but they still support the U.S. providing Kyiv weapons and financial support, according to a national defense survey.
Overall, 57% of respondents said the U.S. must continue to support Ukraine, while 33% said America should focus on its internal problems and avoid provoking Russia. The U.S. has sent more than $19 billion in military aid to Ukraine this year, which 39% of Americans said was the right amount.
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The Pentagon has established a new unit to lure private funding for technology deemed critical to national security, citing concern over China’s military advances.
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President Biden said he was open to making concessions to American allies who have objected to new U.S. subsidies for North American manufacturers, but he didn’t commit to specifics.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi touted development projects in the restive Kurdish region where Tehran has carried out its harshest crackdown since antigovernment protests erupted in September. The visit and promise of action marked a shift in government tactics after the violent means used so far to quell the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic in its four decades of rule.
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Weekend Read: A Survival Guide to Inflation
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C-suite executives and other business leaders are planning for a period where inflation is sticky, interest rates are rising, the geopolitical landscape is fraught with tumult and the economy is slowing.
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Here’s a guide on how executives can navigate the challenges in corporate finance, IT, logistics and marketing:
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John R. Tyson has apologized after his arrest, saying the incident doesn’t reflect his or the company’s values. PHOTO: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Tyson Foods Inc. Chief Financial Officer John R. Tyson, great-grandson of the meat giant’s founder, pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges of criminal trespass and public intoxication.
Mr. Tyson will have a trial on the charges Feb. 15, according to Fayetteville District Court. A Tyson spokesman declined to comment.
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Walt Disney Co. was working with consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in recent months on an effort to centralize control of major spending decisions, triggering an uproar from top creative executives at the entertainment giant, according to people familiar with the matter.
Discussions regarding the plan were under way in the weeks leading up to Nov. 20, when Disney’s board of directors fired Bob Chapek as chief executive and replaced him with his predecessor, Robert Iger.
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The Senate vote is expected to end the long-running labor dispute between railroads and more than 115,000 workers. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Senate lawmakers passed a bill Thursday to prevent a nationwide strike by railroad workers after rejecting a proposal to give them expanded paid sick leave.
In a 80-15 vote, with one voting present, lawmakers agreed to force unions to adopt an earlier labor agreement, exceeding the 60-vote threshold for the measure to pass. The move is expected to end the long-running labor dispute between Union Pacific Corp., CSX Corp. and other freight railroads and more than 115,000 workers.
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Twitter Inc. is offering advertisers incentives to increase their spending on the platform, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to jump-start its business after Elon Musk’s takeover prompted many companies to pull back.
Twitter offered advertisers incentives as generous as matching their ad spending, according to a company email to ad agencies viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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A hospital and quarantine center under construction in Chongqing, China, following a Covid-19 outbreak there last month. CNS PHOTO / REUTERS
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China had three years to prepare for a nationwide surge in Covid-19 cases. While it increased spending to build more hospitals and develop vaccines, funding gradually shifted toward paying for costly Covid-19 restrictions.
Investment in expanding medical resources, such as hospital beds, actually slowed during the pandemic, government data shows.
Now, with virus outbreaks setting records and protesters taking to the streets to denounce Covid-19 controls, experts say China isn’t any better prepared for a serious healthcare emergency than it was three years ago.
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