Good morning. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is demanding the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network explain its delay in fully implementing a whistleblower award program for reporting possible money-laundering and sanctions violations.

Risk & Compliance Journal’s Mengqi Sun reports on a letter sent by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) to the anti-money-laundering bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department, which said that they were concerned about its lack of progress in implementing the program, three years after the bill mandating it was enacted.

• Program background: FinCEN’s anti-money-laundering whistleblower program was established as part of the 2021 annual defense bill. It offers rewards to people who voluntarily provide original information to the Treasury Department or the Justice Department on possible Bank Secrecy Act violations when their tips lead to enforcement actions in which monetary sanctions exceed $1 million.
   
• What are their concerns? The senators said that, among their concerns, FinCEN has failed to establish a dedicated, public website to receive tips and has yet to formalize rules for the whistleblower program, including the types of claims that can be reported and eligibility rules for awards.
   
• FinCEN’s response: A spokeswoman for FinCEN declined to comment on the letter, but said in an email that “FinCEN is fully committed to successful implementation of our expanded mandate…to include the whistleblower program.”

J&J accused of mismanaging its employees’ drug benefits.

A Johnson & Johnson employee has accused the company of mismanaging its workers’ prescription-drug benefits, a new tack in efforts to hold employers accountable for high medicine costs.

The accusations: The lawsuit, filed Monday in a federal court in New Jersey, alleged J&J didn’t make enough effort to get its workers a good deal for prescription drugs, and the employees overpaid for some generic drugs designated as specialty medications by millions of dollars.

• Unethical funeral homes have exploited grieving customers for decades. What consumers don’t know is that many of the industry’s bad actors have been hidden from the public thanks to a sweetheart deal struck between the Federal Trade Commission and the funeral industry more than 25 years ago.
   
• The former president of one of China’s biggest privately run banks has been sentenced to death by a Chinese court. The sentence has been suspended for two years.
   
• Microchip Technology said its board’s compensation committee approved a reduction in salary for the company’s chief executive and president, as well as for other executive staff members.

Restaurant giants cite misinformation over Israel-Hamas war for sales hit.

The Israel-Hamas war is drawing in some of the world’s biggest restaurant companies, despite executives’ efforts to keep their brands above the fray.

McDonald’s and Starbucks said the war has disrupted sales at Middle Eastern locations, and they have pushed back against online accusations that the companies have favored one side or the other in the conflict.

California battered by flash floods and hurricane-level winds.

Torrential rains hammered Southern California, flooding freeways, triggering mudslides that engulfed hillside homes and forcing authorities to rescue people trapped in raging waters.

The deluge battered communities from Santa Barbara to San Diego, with up to 10 inches of rain falling in some places since Sunday, shattering rainfall records across the region, according to the National Weather Service. About 4.1 inches of rain poured onto downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, breaking the daily record of 2.55 inches of rain set in 1927, according to the NWS.

• The Science Behind California’s Atmospheric Rivers

• The U.S. services sector accelerated faster than expected in January, as employment trends improved and demand rebounded, according to survey data released Monday.
   
• A strike near a U.S. base in Syria killed six members of a U.S.-allied militia Monday, the group said, despite the U.S. pounding Iran-allied militia sites with airstrikes over the weekend, underscoring the challenge Washington faces in its goal of keeping the conflict in the Middle East contained.
   
• Chinese shares extended declines on Monday despite a series of stimulus measures and a securities regulator’s latest pledge to shore up the market.

Bouldon comes to the Smithfield, Va.-based food company from information services company Wolters Kluwer, where she was managing counsel. She also previously worked as the acting compliance chief for manufacturing technology company Bright Machines, and as chief compliance officer for retailer Michaels Stores and produce company Chiquita Brands International.

• Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has applied for Secret Service protection because of increasing threats she has received as Donald Trump’s last major opponent for the 2024 GOP nomination.
   
• Novo Nordisk’s owner wants to solve the Danish company’s weight-loss-drug production woes by buying up one of the world’s biggest contract manufacturing firms.
   
• Israel is quietly pushing the U.S. and U.N. to allow a controversial U.N. agency that had some of its staff linked to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel to continue playing a leading role in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
   
• In Russia’s coming presidential election, the candidates running against Vladimir Putin are confident of one thing: their certain defeat.
   
• Three senators spent four intense months shaping a bipartisan deal designed to sharply cut down on illegal border crossings. Now they have just days to shore up support for the measure, as top Republicans and some Democrats criticized their colleagues’ work.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Follow Risk & Compliance editor David Smagalla @DSmagalla_DJ and reporters Mengqi Sun @_MengqiSun, Dylan Tokar @dgtokar and Richard Vanderford @VanderfordRich.

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