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The Morning Risk Report: Israeli Cyber Firm NSO Group Blacklisted by U.S. Amid Phone Hacking Allegations
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The Israeli government tightly controls the export of NSO Group’s software as defense technology. PHOTO: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS
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The Biden administration on Wednesday placed Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group on an export prohibition list that will restrict the firm from obtaining some types of technology from the U.S.
NSO Group was placed on an “entity list” by the Commerce Department, which said the firm had been acting “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.”
[Continued below...]
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The Commerce Department also placed three other similar vendors—based in Israel, Russia and Singapore—on the entity list. The move came after an interagency panel composed of the departments of Defense, State, Energy, Treasury and Commerce determined that the conduct of the companies warranted inclusion on the list.
The designation will block exports from the U.S. to NSO Group of both hardware and software without a Commerce Department license, and could make it more difficult for the company to seek contracts with international customers. The department said it would review any future license applications with a “presumption of denial” but retains discretion to grant them in some circumstances.
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Nomura Takes Steps to Address Risk in Wake of Archegos Collapse
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Nomura Holdings Inc., which hired its first global head of wholesale front-office risk and control earlier this week, is looking to bolster its risk management ranks in the Americas following the disclosure of losses earlier this year stemming from the collapse of Archegos Capital Management.
Vijay Sundaram, who previously worked for Jefferies Group LLC and UBS AG, is tasked with reviewing and strengthening financial and non-financial risk controls within Nomura's wholesale banking business, which a bank spokesman in an email called its “first line of defense.”
The spokesman added that following the Archegos incident, Nomura conducted an in-depth review of its risk management framework across its wholesale banking, risk management and internal audit operations, looking at its risk culture, governance, management structure and business processes, among other areas.
Nomura will also update its code of conduct and hold workshops and training sessions to enhance ownership and accountability for risk management, the spokesman said. Risk management also will be incorporated into performance evaluations.
Archegos roiled Wall Street when heavily leveraged bets it made on a small collection of stocks unwound, triggering huge losses at a half a dozen banks that had lent heavily to the investor, including a $2.85 billion loss for Nomura.
—David Smagalla
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The International Accounting Standards Board's headquarters in London. The foundation that oversees the IASB has created a new body to craft climate-disclosure rules. PHOTO: IFRS FOUNDATION
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The foundation that oversees the International Accounting Standards Board said it has created a new body to craft climate-disclosure rules for companies as investors push for more standardized information.
The new International Sustainability Standards Board is expected to issue its first set of standards in the second half of 2022, which will serve as the starting point for requirements on climate-related disclosure that jurisdictions could then choose to implement, the IFRS Foundation said Wednesday at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission reversed a Trump-era policy and acted to streamline the process for shareholders to propose resolutions on environmental or social issues during the coming proxy season.
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The SEC rescinded guidance that since 2017 helped company managers to exclude some shareholder proposals from their annual proxy statements. The change reflects the agency’s emphasis on so-called shareholder democracy under Chairman Gary Gensler, a Democrat tapped by President Biden. It also comes as deadlines for proposals in the 2022 proxy season are approaching in coming weeks.
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The United Nations’ Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero says financial groups with assets of $130 trillion have committed to its program to cut emissions. That is enough scale to generate $100 trillion through 2050 to fund investments needed for new technologies, and enough reach to impose pathways for corporations and financial institutions to restructure themselves, the group said.
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The Biden administration on Tuesday finalized a regulation that will sharply increase the financial penalties for larger hospitals that don’t make their prices public.
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Voting-machine company Smartmatic USA Corp. sued Newsmax Media Inc. and One America News Network over what it alleges were defamatory reports about the company’s technology following the 2020 presidential election.
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Hertz Global Holdings Inc. said some of its stockholders are selling 37.1 million common shares, as the rental-car company seeks to start trading again on a major stock exchange.
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Zillow has found that physically buying and selling homes is significantly different from valuing them. PHOTO: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
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Sometimes a ruler gets too ambitious and has to fall on his own sword.
So it goes for online real-estate king Zillow which, in conjunction with its earnings announcement Tuesday, said it was quitting the automated home-flipping business less than three years after reorganizing its whole kingdom to accommodate it. The pullout, the company said, would reduce its workforce by about 25% over the next few quarters.
Zillow said last month that it was pausing offers on homes for which it didn’t already have signed contracts through the end of the year.
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Maine residents voted to reject a $950 million power transmission line under construction there to import Canadian hydropower, raising a hurdle for a long-pursued method of adding clean energy in New England.
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Qualcomm Inc. posted record quarterly sales and forecast further growth amid surging demand for 5G smartphones in the face of supply-chain constraints. Chief Executive Cristiano Amon said steps the company has taken to assure parts supplies are starting to deliver results and should ease bottlenecks over the coming months.
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A diplomatic crisis between France and Australia deepened on Wednesday after senior officials on both sides traded barbs over September’s landmark defense agreement between the U.S. and Australia, as geopolitical tensions over the accord continued to ripple.
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Covid-19 cut into third-quarter results at MetLife Inc., as deaths linked to the Delta variant increased for people in their working years.
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Deere & Co. won’t raise its offer to striking workers after a second vote to ratify a new contract failed Tuesday, a company executive said.
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DHS has previously imposed cybersecurity mandates on government agencies. PHOTO: TING SHEN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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The Biden administration on Wednesday issued a sweeping new order mandating that nearly all federal agencies patch hundreds of cybersecurity vulnerabilities that are considered major risks for damaging intrusions into government computer systems.
The new requirement is one of the most wide-reaching cybersecurity mandates ever imposed on the federal government. It covers about 200 known security flaws identified by cybersecurity professionals between 2017 and 2020 and an additional 90 discovered in 2021 alone that have generally been observed being used by malicious hackers. Those flaws were listed in a new federal catalog as carrying “significant risk to the federal enterprise.”
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Mark Cutifani became Anglo American’s chief executive in 2013. PHOTO: SUMAYA HISHAM/REUTERS
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Anglo American PLC said Chief Executive Mark Cutifani would retire next year, ending a near-decadelong reign that revived one of the mining industry’s most storied names.
Mr. Cutifani’s departure is the latest change at the top of the world’s largest mining companies, with the CEOs of Glencore PLC, BHP Group Ltd. and Rio Tinto PLC all stepping down in the past year or so.
Anglo American said Wednesday that Mr. Cutifani would be succeeded as CEO by company veteran Duncan Wanblad in April next year.
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Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance Ltd. that owns social-media app TikTok, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Chinese technology giant, completing a leadership handover set in motion from May, people familiar with the matter said.
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Trucks line up to drop off containers in Carson, Calif. ALLISON ZAUCHA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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A critical, often-overlooked link in the supply chain is emerging as a stubborn choke point in the freight-backlog mess: trucking.
Trucks haul more than 70% of domestic cargo shipments. Yet many fleets say they can’t hire enough drivers to meet booming consumer demand as the U.S. economy emerges from the pandemic.
The freight backup has intensified longstanding strains in the industry over hours, pay, working conditions and retention.
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At COP26, the U.N. Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero said financial groups with assets of $130 trillion have committed to its program to cut emissions. PHOTO: PETER SUMMERS/GETTY IMAGES
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The organizations that lend, invest and regulate the world’s money are taking on climate change. There was a flurry of announcements at the COP26 U.N. climate conference in Glasgow on Tuesday, where former central banker Mark Carney worked to reach global agreements with the financial sector to use their sway to reduce emissions. Here are some of the key points and what they mean.
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