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The Morning Risk Report: Masks Come Off, Mandates Loosen as Companies Relax Covid-19 Protocols
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Good morning. U.S. companies are relaxing many of the vaccine and other Covid-related requirements that had become a staple of corporate life in the pandemic.
As office occupancy nears pandemic-era highs in many U.S. cities, a number of employers have communicated new, looser safety protocols to workers. Some companies made masks optional in the office for all workers, while others dropped testing requirements for the unvaccinated or simplified the daily return-to-office questionnaires.
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Centura Health: Building the Hospital of the Future
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Some transformations break down silos; building a hospital to thrive in rapidly evolving environments is about expanding beyond four walls, says Centura’s CIO Carrie Damon and CISO Sanjeev Sah. Read More ›
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The new protocols in many cases follow updated guidance from health authorities, who have moved away from blanket preventive measures in favor of a more targeted approach focused on limiting infection and severe illness in high-risk areas. Infections have edged up again in the U.S. and the Omicron BA.2 variant accounts for more new Covid-19 cases. Read more.
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WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum
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Brian Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence and the senior U.S. Treasury official for sanctions, will be speaking at the Risk & Compliance Forum on May 10. We’ve also added a breakout session to discuss navigating sanctions imposed on Russia due to the Ukraine war. Use the code DJR&C to sign up here.
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From Risk & Compliance Journal
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S&P Global Settles Allegations It Violated Russia Sanctions
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S&P Global Inc. agreed to settle allegations it violated U.S. sanctions when it continued to extend credit to Rosneft after the Russian oil producer faced debt and equity restrictions beginning in 2014, the Treasury Department said Friday.
S&P, a New York-based provider of financial and business analytics, will pay $78,750 as part of the civil settlement with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces U.S. sanctions.
The civil settlement, while relating to transactions made in 2016 and 2017, illustrates how the U.S. could seek to crack down on sanctions evasion as it implements an economic and financial pressure campaign against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February.
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A professor has some advice for the SEC as it considers new rules for swaps. ILLUSTRATION: JON KRAUSE
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A push by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for more transparency around security-based swap positions might seem, on its face, to be a no-brainer.
After all, the misuse of one type of swap, credit-default swaps, was a major contributor to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. And a second type, total return swaps, contributed to the multibillion-dollar collapse of Archegos Capital Management last year.
There is, however, a potential downside to the SEC’s proposal for increased disclosure of swap positions that might not be immediately apparent: If passed, the rules could severely restrain shareholder activism—a key market mechanism for holding corporate managements accountable, improving governance and creating sustainable value.
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Chinese government agents are increasingly recruiting and hiring private eyes to harass dissidents and forcibly repatriate Chinese-born U.S. and Canadian residents whom Beijing considers criminals, according to federal law-enforcement officials and newly unsealed court cases.
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A federal judge on Friday rejected convicted sex-trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s request for a new trial, ruling that a juror’s lack of truthfulness on a jury-screening questionnaire didn’t justify throwing out the guilty verdict.
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More than 100 civilians lay buried in mass graves in this suburb of Kyiv after Russian troops withdrew last week, one of several regions in which Ukrainian officials and independent rights watchdogs say they are uncovering evidence of war crimes perpetrated by occupation forces.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other global crises are threatening to set back a costly, decadeslong push to eradicate polio, health experts say.
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Sanctions imposed on Russia are disrupting China’s ambitions to move more exports to Europe, a setback for the $4 trillion effort championed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping to cement his country as the world’s pre-eminent trading partner.
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Western nations and their allies have agreed to release oil from their reserves, joining the U.S. in trying to tame oil prices that have soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the U.S. economy is facing unprecedented risks that have him preparing for dramatic upheavals.
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The U.S. labor market strengthened last month as the pandemic’s grip receded and more workers jumped back into the labor force.
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A surge in food and fuel prices is raising pressure on governments around the world to pick up the tab for consumers, stretching precarious public finances and intensifying political instability in the shakiest economies.
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As war broke out, a JPMorgan ESG index had relatively large allocations to Russia and Ukraine. PHOTO: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is exposing the trade-offs in a hot Wall Street product meant to encourage good governance.
Environmental, social and governance, or ESG, funds have become a top trend, promising to boost returns while bettering the world by avoiding countries prone to pollution, corruption and even war. The strategy backfired on two of its biggest advocates— JPMorgan Chase & Co. and BlackRock Inc.—when Russia invaded Ukraine and returns in one of their ESG strategies lagged behind more conventional funds.
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Pay increases for U.S. chief executives have gained steam, putting compensation on pace to set a record amid a tight labor market that is also driving pay higher for many of their workers.
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Huawei Technologies Co. has promoted finance chief Meng Wanzhou to one of the tech giant’s top leadership positions, the latest sign of her rising stature six months after a deal with the U.S. releasing her from detention in Canada.
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Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Andy Jassy received compensation valued at $212.7 million in 2021, his first year as head of the tech and e-commerce giant.
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U.K. financial regulators launched a review into last month’s breakdown in nickel trading, and signaled they expect major changes at the London Metal Exchange to address what went wrong.
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Gett CEO and founder Dave Waiser at an event in Moscow in 2019.
PHOTO: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/ZUMA PRESS
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Companies are scrapping planned mergers in Europe or taking more time to analyze potential deals as the Russian war on Ukraine puts a damper on what is otherwise expected to be a robust year for acquisitions.
A handful of European companies, including U.K.-based Spectris PLC, a measurement-device company, and Gett, a corporate-transportation company, called off prospective deals following the Russian invasion in late February, citing market uncertainty.
The conflict also is affecting deals in earlier stages, prompting some acquirers to stay on the sidelines, at least temporarily, as they assess the impact of rising energy prices, or conduct additional fact-finding about a target’s operations, mergers and acquisitions executives said.
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GPB Capital Holdings LLC said its assets have grown to more than $1.21 billion following sales of automotive and health companies, potentially stirring hope for roughly 17,000 investors who have been waiting for distributions since 2018 from the private-equity firm, which has been operating under a court-appointed monitor since last year.
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But GPB also said in a regulatory filing that it faces substantial legal costs over litigation pending in various courts, which could reduce its assets significantly. A recent Delaware Chancery Court ruling added to those costs by ordering New York-based GPB to pay for certain legal expenses incurred by Jeffry Schneider, one of three people connected with the firm who faces criminal fraud charges in federal court.
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Amazon.com Inc. warehouse workers in New York voted to establish the tech giant’s first union in the U.S., providing a major victory for labor activists who have long sought to bring representation to the nation’s second-largest private employer.
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The war in Ukraine is hitting global tourism just as the industry tries to recover from a two-year battering during the pandemic.
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A worker displaying a QR code to Shanghai residents lining up for Covid-19 testing Friday. PHOTO: ALY SONG/REUTERS
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A wider swath of Shanghai went into lockdown early Friday, as the weight of Covid-19 restrictions continued to drag on economic sentiment.
As part of a two-phase lockdown, from 3 a.m. residents living to the west and north of the city’s Huangpu River weren’t allowed to leave their homes—except to receive Covid-19 tests. Their neighbors on the other side of the river had already been under lockdown from 5 a.m. Monday, with authorities extending restrictions in many buildings and neighborhoods where positive cases were found.
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