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The Morning Risk Report: Blockchain.com Hires Former Deutsche Bank Executive as First Compliance Chief
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The Blockchain.com logo is displayed on a smartphone. The firm recently hired its first chief compliance officer. PHOTO: GABBY JONES/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Blockchain.com Inc., which provides a variety of cryptocurrency services to individual investors and institutional clients, has hired its first chief compliance officer as it looks to keep up with rapid growth while developing legal frameworks for its business.
CJ Rinaldi, who most recently was the head of markets compliance in the Americas for broker-dealer Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., began working for London-based Blockchain.com as its global CCO in October. Based in Connecticut, Mr. Rinaldi joins the company’s growing compliance team of 60 people. He reports to Lindsey Haswell, the company’s chief legal officer.
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In his new role, Mr. Rinaldi oversees the compliance issues related to onboarding clients as well as ensuring the company follows anti-money-laundering rules and sanctions laws.
Blockchain.com’s CCO hiring is the latest example of crypto firms ramping up hiring in their compliance departments as they come under increasing regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and world-wide. The Biden administration this week took the first significant step to impose banklike oversight on the cryptocurrency companies involved in the issuance of stablecoins, outlining a process that could shape the future of that digital money. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler this week also said that he believes the crypto market wouldn’t mature without regulatory oversight.
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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Justice Department’s White-Collar Crime Approach ‘Broadly Consistent’ With SEC, Gensler Says
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Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said he agrees with the Justice Department’s recently revised approach to prosecuting corporate misdeeds, Risk & Compliance Journal’s David Smagalla reports.
Mr. Gensler, in a speech to the Securities Enforcement Forum on Thursday, referred to changes announced by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco last week, including that prosecutors would start considering all prior wrongdoing by corporations when deciding how to resolve a new investigation. Previously, prosecutors were allowed to only review cases whose facts were similar to the claims in the latest probe.
“While our organizations are independent, and our enforcement tools, authorities and missions are distinct, these changes are broadly consistent with my view of how to handle corporate offenders,” Mr. Gensler said.
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A masked Trevor Milton, the founder of Nikola Corp., leaving a New York City federal courthouse in July. PHOTO: EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS
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Electric-truck startup Nikola Corp. will likely pay $125 million to settle a regulatory investigation into allegedly misleading statements made by its founder and former executive chairman.
Nikola disclosed the development Thursday in a securities filing that says the company plans to seek reimbursement for the penalty from its founder, Trevor Milton, who was indicted on fraud charges in July.
Nikola was one of several transportation-focused firms that went public in 2020 through a merger with a blank-check firm known as a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The Securities and Exchange Commission has closely scrutinized the SPAC market, which allowed many young, pre-revenue companies to go public at high valuations.
Nikola said the deal with the SEC isn’t final and needs to be approved by the agency’s commissioners. The company didn’t disclose whether the settlement would involve fraud or lesser charges.
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Rivian recently began production on its first mode. PHOTO: PATRICK T. FALLON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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A former sales and marketing vice president at Rivian Automotive Inc. has sued the electric-vehicle startup, alleging that she was fired last month after telling a human-resources executive that she had been subjected to gender discrimination.
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The complaint, filed Thursday ahead of Rivian’s hotly anticipated initial public offering, details concerns she allegedly raised internally, including that the company underpriced its vehicles, had manufacturing-quality issues and set unrealistic delivery targets.
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Many employers will have to ensure by Jan. 4 that their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19 under a set of new vaccine requirements by the Biden administration that will cover more than 80 million employees.
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The Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccination and testing requirements for larger employers drew mixed reaction from executives, with some saying the new rules simplified their roles, while others raised concerns about costs, logistical challenges and the threat of workers leaving.
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The enforcement of President Biden’s private-sector vaccine mandate will in large measure come down to the employees themselves, as the government agency whose mission is to improve workplace safety works to play a bigger role in defeating the pandemic.
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Many of the cybersecurity gaps outlined in a new White House directive that calls on federal agencies to patch hundreds of online vulnerabilities stem from the government’s aging computer systems, current and former federal tech chiefs, lawmakers and industry analysts say.
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Venture capitalist Chris Lucas invested in Theranos Inc. despite having less information about the startup than he was accustomed to getting as part of his decision-making process.
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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Jeff Bezos' space company over a NASA contract, a setback for Blue Origin’s effort to win work developing a moon lander.
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The NBA opened an investigation into the Phoenix Suns on Thursday in response to a new report containing allegations of a toxic workplace cultivated by team owner Robert Sarver, the league said.
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The deficit in trade of goods and services grew 11.2% in September. PHOTO: JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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The U.S. trade deficit widened in September to $80.9 billion, a record, driven by climbing demand for capital goods like computers and electric equipment and industrial supplies that have been soaring in cost as global supply chains remain snarled.
The deficit in trade of goods and services grew 11.2% in September, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The trade deficit has been trending wider throughout the economic recovery, but this was the sharpest monthly increase in the deficit since July of 2020. Imports rose by 0.6% to $288.5 billion, also a monthly record.
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North Korea has the capacity to make more base ingredients for nuclear bombs than previously believed, according to new research, suggesting the Kim Jong Un regime possesses the potential to accelerate the earliest stages of production.
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Sudan’s military coup—the fourth in Africa this year—underscores the increasingly complex international backdrop that is helping fuel a surge in military takeovers that have almost disappeared in other parts of the globe.
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OPEC and a group of Russia-led producers agreed to keep to their gradual, monthly increase in oil output, deciding to boost production by 400,000 barrels a day next month and rebuffing stepped-up pressure from the U.S. to boost output and ease prices.
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Most of the world’s developing countries have backed a demand for wealthy nations to channel at least $1.3 trillion in climate finance to them annually starting in 2030, the opening salvo in one of the most contentious negotiating topics at the COP26 climate summit.
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Alphabet Inc.’s Google has invested $1 billion in futures-exchange giant CME Group Inc. and struck a deal to move the company’s core trading systems to the cloud.
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A monthlong strike at Kellogg Co. is raising the cereal giant’s costs as it contends with continuing inflation and supply-chain disruptions.
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An AT&T cell tower in Detroit; the telecom company has delayed its 5G deployment until Jan. 5. PHOTO: JIM WEST/ZUMA PRESS
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Two U.S. telecom companies agreed to delay their planned Dec. 5 rollout of a new 5G frequency band so they can work with the Federal Aviation Administration to address concerns about potential interference with key cockpit safety systems.
AT&T Inc. said it agreed to delay its planned 5G deployment until Jan. 5 at the request of the U.S. Transportation Department, which oversees the FAA. Verizon Communications Inc. also agreed to postpone its launch of the new 5G wireless spectrum by about a month, people familiar with the matter said.
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Swiss lender Credit Suisse unveiled a new strategy alongside strong third-quarter results on Thursday. PHOTO: ARND WIEGMANN/REUTERS
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António Horta-Osório’s planned overhaul of Credit Suisse is more cultural than structural. That puts the onus on his management skills to bring the crisis-prone Swiss bank back into line with more successful peer UBS.
The revamp is less radical than some expected given the bank’s recent string of missteps. It might be all that is needed: Credit Suisse has generated decent returns lately if you ignore losses from the collapses of clients Archegos and Greensill. But investors need to believe that there won’t be any more such scandals. Nailing the elusive balance between risk management and entrepreneurial spirit is crucial to achieving profitability and growth without storing up problems for the future.
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A Tacoma pickup truck on display in the Toyota exhibit at a September auto show in Denver. PHOTO: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Toyota Motor Corp. shrugged off the effects of a semiconductor shortage and reported higher profit in the most recent quarter as well as an improved forecast for the full fiscal year.
Although Toyota is getting an assist from a weaker yen, which means the dollars it earns abroad are worth more in local-currency terms, the results overall are another sign of how the world’s largest car maker by vehicle sales is weathering the global shortage of semiconductors better than most of its peers.
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Tesla Inc. and Hertz Global Holdings Inc. are negotiating over how quickly Hertz will receive deliveries from a bulk order of 100,000 Tesla electric cars for its rental fleet, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Herbert Diess pledged to build a future electric vehicle at the company’s flagship German plant in a bid to head off an escalating conflict with VW’s powerful labor leaders that has thrust the firm’s future into uncertainty.
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