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The Morning Risk Report: BMW, Jaguar and VW Parts May Have Been Made With Forced Labor, Senate Report Says

By Dylan Tokar

 

Good morning. BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen sourced parts from a company on a ban list over alleged links to Chinese forced labor, a leading U.S. Senate Democrat said in a report that calls for stepped up enforcement efforts.

All three automakers had in their supply chains parts made by a company under an explicit import ban over forced labor concerns, Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said Monday in a report that follows a monthslong investigation.

  • Forced labor law: Since the 2021 passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the U.S. has put intense pressure on businesses to ensure their supply chains are free of goods that could be tied to forced labor from China’s Xinjiang region, the home of the country’s Uyghur people and other minorities. China denies allegations of human-rights abuses.
     
  • Entity list: Wyden said that BMW and JLR bought parts made with components from Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group, which was added to the Entity List in December. BMW imported at least 8,000 Mini Cooper model cars with a banned component even after being put on notice of a potential forced labor concern in its supply chain, Wyden said.
 
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Generative AI: How Legal Chiefs Can Seize Opportunities While Mitigating Risks

CLOs have a distinct opportunity to shape and influence their organizations’ adoption of generative AI and implement guardrails for its use amid a shifting regulatory landscape. Keep Reading ›

More Risk & Compliance articles from Deloitte ›
 

Compliance

FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg PHOTO: ALLISON ROBBERT/BLOOMBERG NEWS

FDIC chairman Martin Gruenberg to resign after report into regulator’s culture.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg bowed to pressure to resign from the bank regulator after an external investigation found widespread sexual harassment at the agency and lawmakers of both parties berated his leadership, capping a nearly two-decade career at the agency.

In an email to staff Monday, Gruenberg said he would resign once a successor had been confirmed, avoiding a scenario that would leave FDIC Vice Chairman Travis Hill, a Republican, as the agency’s acting chairman. Hill is a former staffer at the agency who has served on the five-member board for about a year.

 

FinCEN gathers banking reps to discuss fentanyl money-laundering risks.

The Treasury Department’s anti-money-laundering watchdog is going on the road to warn banks about the illicit finance risks posed by the U.S.’s continuing fentanyl crisis.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on Monday said it was launching a series of exchanges with financial-sector representatives and law-enforcement officials in cities around the country. The first such exchange took place in Boston on Monday, according to the Treasury bureau. The exchanges are being held in partnership with the criminal investigations arm of the Internal Revenue Service.

FinCEN, which last year convened a task force focused on combating fentanyl trafficking, has called on banks to flag suspicious transactions that could be related to the production or sale of illicit forms of the drug.

 
  • Embattled hydrogen-truck maker Nikola wants to put its convicted founder in the rearview mirror. Trevor Milton has had other plans.
     
  • The U.S. opposes a proposed global wealth tax on billionaires, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, rejecting an idea floated by Brazil, France and other nations to tip the economic scales away from the megarich.
     
  • Ivan Boesky, who went to prison and paid a record $100 million fine for insider trading, becoming a symbol of extravagance and corruption on Wall Street, has died at the age of 87.
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“Sanctions are an important tool to hasten an end to the war in Ukraine, but, as the Policy Lab report comprehensively demonstrates, these sanctions are vulnerable to the confidentiality privileges afforded to U.S. lawyers."

— Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, in a new report by Stanford Law School on the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions against Russia.
 

Risk

President Biden announced new tariffs on China last week. PHOTO: TIERNEY L. CROSS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

The U.S. finally has a strategy to compete with China. Will it work?

The new tariffs President Biden announced last week aren’t economically significant. Symbolically, they are huge.

The U.S. buys almost no electric vehicles, steel or semiconductors—all targets of the tariffs—from China. But, by adding to, rather than rescinding, tariffs imposed in 2018 by former President Donald Trump, it signals that the decoupling of the Chinese and U.S. economies is becoming irreversible.

More important, the tariffs are the final piece of an economic strategy for competing with China.

  • Related: U.S. Tariffs Close Off the Easiest Route to Affordable EVs
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  • With the world watching, Taiwan’s new president delivered an inauguration speech that said almost nothing new. It’s likely just what Washington wanted.
     
  • European investigators increasingly see Russian fingerprints around recent acts of suspected sabotage on strategic infrastructure but are struggling to respond.
 
$1.3 Billion

The amount of withdrawal requests received by Starwood Capital Group. The commercial real-estate fund is scrambling to escape a looming cash crunch caused by the long line of investors who want their money back.

 

What Else Matters

  • The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s defense minister and the leaders of Hamas.
     
  • The Iranian president's death has dealt an unsettling blow to the country’s politics and raises questions regarding the succession of not just the presidency, but also the most powerful position in the country—that of supreme leader.
     
  • Jamie Dimon acknowledged that he will likely be leaving his role as chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase in fewer than five years.
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About Us

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.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email David at david.smagalla@wsj.com.

 
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