Good morning. A judge on Thursday began hearing Google’s arguments for why the landmark antitrust case over its search-engine dominance should be tossed instead of going to trial later this year.

Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., has said people use its search engine because it is a superior product, and not because of anticompetitive agreements.

• Search-engine dominance: Google handles about 90% of search-engine queries worldwide. The Justice Department’s lawsuit alleges Google maintains a monopoly “through exclusionary distribution agreements that steer billions of search queries to Google each day,” including contracts that make Google the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox browser.
   
• Two cases at stake: Both sides are weighing in before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Google’s request for judgment in its favor in a 2020 civil lawsuit brought by the Justice Department. Google is also asking Judge Mehta to toss out a similar lawsuit brought by a bipartisan coalition of 38 state attorneys general. 
   
• No decision yet: A written decision from the judge is expected this spring or summer.

The WSJ Risk & Compliance Forum on May 9 will feature speakers including Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr., Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew Axelrod, Elizabeth Atlee, chief ethics & compliance officer at CBRE, and Sidney Majalya, chief risk officer at Binance.US. You can register here.

Russia ordered to pay Ukraine’s Naftogaz $5 billion for assets seized in Crimea.

Ukrainian state-owned gas giant NJSC Naftogaz said Thursday that a Hague-based international-arbitration panel has ordered Russia to pay the company $5 billion for losses caused by the seizure of assets in the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea.

The award by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration is likely to trigger a long process by Ukraine and Naftogaz to recover Russian assets abroad. The primary route for that stems from a longstanding international treaty governing the enforcement of foreign arbitration awards.

Wedbush hires compliance chief for futures division.

Wedbush Securities Inc. has hired Matt Lisle, a former regulatory executive with the New York Stock Exchange, as chief compliance officer for its futures division. Mr. Lisle will be based in Chicago and report to the financial-services company’s general counsel, Andrew Druch.

Mr. Lisle most recently served as chief compliance officer for blockchain and cryptocurrency company Galaxy Digital Holdings. His career also included stints as compliance chief of ABN Amro Clearing Chicago and as a staff attorney at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

• Donald Trump is set to answer questions under oath Thursday from lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James, as her office prepares for a trial later this year on its allegations that the former president and others engaged in civil fraud.

This year's hurricane season predicted to be below average after a costly 2022.

This year’s Atlantic hurricane season will likely bring fewer storms than average, scientists said—offering a potential respite for coastal locales after a costly 2022—though they cautioned the forecast is less certain than usual because it is complicated by El Niño.

Researchers at Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science anticipate 13 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes in 2023, according to a forecast released Thursday. A typical hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, results in 14 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

OPEC sees oil demand climbing.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said it expects oil demand to climb this year, a forecast that is at odds with the recent move by some of its biggest members to slash output and suggests higher energy prices are looming.

The Vienna-based cartel said it was standing by its earlier forecast that demand for crude oil is expected to rise by 2.3 million barrels a day this year. That means OPEC’s own analysts appear to see the market differently than some of the cartel’s largest members, who recently said they would cut output by more than 1 million barrels a day.

• Protesters stormed the headquarters of luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE on Thursday as the nationwide protest movement against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul morphed into a populist rebuke of France’s establishment.
   
• North Korea said that it had launched a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, which would give the country a new weapon that is faster to deploy and harder to detect, marking a significant advance in its military technology.
   
• A deposit run that felled Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has hurt small banks much more than big ones, draining low-cost funding that has fueled their profitability in recent years.

Rising rates and volatility in the banking industry are paving the way for a golden age for private debt.

Managers of private-credit and debt funds say they are ready and willing to step in to fill the gaps opened by a pullback in leveraged loans from banks in recent months, in some cases by clubbing together on debt packages. What’s more, private-credit firms see an opportunity to secure investments at more attractive terms for themselves, and they have plenty of dry powder to back those deals.

In a special report for WSJ Pro subscribers, we explore the ever-expanding world of private credit, opportunities for distressed debt and even how the environment shapes the market for collateralized-loan obligations. And, a list of the new rulers of private credit. 

Read the special report here.

• The Biden administration urged federal workers to return to their offices in new guidance that gives agencies broad discretion for how to revamp their work environments and leaves room for some continued telework.
   
• Plans to clean up coal-fired power plants with ammonia, a compound commonly used to make fertilizer, are attracting new investment from big companies.
   
• Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud-computing division announced new artificial intelligence offerings Thursday, becoming the latest tech giant to try to cash in on generative AI, the technology behind ChatGPT.
   
• Time named WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, who remains detained in Russia, to its 2023 Time 100 list of most influential people.