The European Union plans to require thousands of U.S. companies to disclose extensive details about how their operations affect the climate—unless the Securities and Exchange Commission passes rules that EU officials see as tough enough to take their place.

Whether U.S. companies get a waiver from the EU law likely will depend on the SEC adopting its own, as-yet-unfinished climate rules, EU officials familiar with the matter said.

The background: More than 3,000 U.S. companies are expected to have to gather and disclose data on their greenhouse-gas emissions and those of their suppliers and customers under a European Union law passed in 2022. The law says non-EU companies can get out of the new rules only if they face equivalent requirements elsewhere.

SEC efforts stalling: The U.S. agency has been working for more than a year to finish requirements that publicly traded companies report emissions and business risks associated with climate change. It has faced fierce opposition from some industry groups and Republicans. But the SEC also wants to maintain its role as a global standard-setter and is eager to avoid subjecting U.S. companies to different rules in different jurisdictions, officials have said.

EU law implications: The looming EU requirements have become a growing cause for concern for U.S. business groups that were previously focused on opposing the SEC’s initiative.

The Risk & Compliance Forum on May 9 will feature speakers including Glenn Leon, chief of the fraud section at the Justice Department, 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.

Frank’s International pays $8 million to settle Angola bribery violations. 

Frank’s International NV, a Dutch oil services firm, has agreed to pay $8 million to resolve an investigation into alleged bribery violations by the company’s operations in Angola, U.S. regulators said Wednesday.

The company, now part of Houston-based Expro Group Holdings NV, paid commissions to a sales agent who employees in the region knew was likely to use the funds to bribe Angolan government officials, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

South Dakota firm hit with FinCEN’s first enforcement action against a trust company.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network assessed a $1.5 million penalty against a trust company for alleged violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, its first enforcement action against a trust company. South Dakota-chartered Kingdom Trust Co. had virtually no system to identify and report suspicious transactions, which led to it processing $4 billion in international wire transfers with essentially no controls, FinCEN Acting Director Himamauli Das said.

“We will not tolerate trust companies with weak compliance programs that fail to identify and report suspicious activities,” Mr. Das said. Kingdom Trust didn’t respond to a request for comment.

U.K. rejected more banking licenses last year than ever before, FCA official says.

The U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority last year denied licenses to more firms than ever after finding many applicants weren't up to standards, a senior FCA official said. Though getting a license is "nothing to fear," would-be financial industry players need to get a handle on regulatory issues before they can grow, Emily Shepperd, the FCA's chief operating officer, said in a speech Wednesday. 

“My job is to minimize disruption and we had enough of that several weeks ago," Ms. Shepperd said, alluding to the FCA's recent work on a rescue deal for the U.K. unit of failed Silicon Valley Bank.

• Deutsche Bank says the head of its Americas division is leaving the bank. Christiana Riley, who took the position in 2019, is leaving to join Banco Santander as head of North America, the Spanish lender said separately. Stefan Simon, Deutsche Bank’s chief administrative officer who is responsible for dealing with regulators and for compliance, will move to New York and add Ms. Riley's role to his responsibilities.
   
• U.S.-led sanctions designed to throttle Moscow’s fossil-fuel income face a new challenge: a big jump in the price Russia gets for its oil.
   
• The U.K. decision to block Microsoft Corp.’s plan to buy videogame producer Activision Blizzard Inc. is the latest sign of how global regulators are toughening their approach to market-dominating tech companies.
   
• Pras Michel, who rose to fame in the 1990s as a member of the Fugees hip-hop trio, was found guilty Wednesday of serving as the linchpin of a multimillion-dollar foreign-influence scheme that spanned two presidencies and combined celebrity with political intrigue.
   
• Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos founder convicted of criminal fraud, doesn’t have to report to prison Thursday.

First Republic Bank is a problem with no easy solution. 

First Republic Bank is running up against a grim reality in its fight for survival: There are seemingly no good options.

Any solution would likely require assistance from regulators, the government or other lenders. But the darkening economic outlook, bad lending decisions and limits on Washington policy makers pose hurdles for any intervention.

The stakes are high, in part because what they do with First Republic could create a template for how they deal with other troubled banks. The regulators and big banks want to stop the crisis from spreading and avoid having to play whack-a-mole with future banking problems.

China’s Xi makes first call to Ukraine’s Zelensky since Russian invasion. 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, their first conversation since the Russian invasion more than a year ago, as Beijing attempts to portray itself as a potential peacemaker in the conflict.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued on Wednesday in the western districts of Bakhmut, the Ukrainian city where the country’s defenders have been putting up stiff, costly resistance against Russia’s invasion forces for months.

• The U.S. has agreed to give Seoul a greater voice in consultations on a potential American nuclear response to a North Korean attack in return for swearing off developing its own nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said.
   
• China said it is investigating a Taiwan-based publisher for suspected national-security violations. The publisher, Li Yanhe, disappeared from view after arriving in Shanghai to visit family in March.

• Freight fraud is spreading across trucking networks as tech-savvy operators impersonating middlemen skim off payments for shipping goods that can total thousands of dollars, industry executives say.
   
• Walt Disney Co. filed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over control of the area encompassing the company’s Orlando-area theme parks, a move that escalates the yearlong battle between the company and governor, a possible 2024 presidential candidate.
   
• Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Chief Executive Giovanni Caforio is planning to retire, the company said Wednesday.
   
• Sens. Angus King (I., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) introduced a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would require the U.S. Supreme Court to create its own code of conduct within a year, following media reports that raise questions about whether Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch properly disclosed their financial activities.
   
• Former Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was sentenced to six months of home confinement and two years of supervised release after being found guilty in 2021 of federal charges stemming from payments he received from a Chinese government talent program.
   
• The arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has thrown a spotlight on a Russian judicial system in which defendants often languish for months in detention even before a trial while prosecutors are granted time to build their case.
   
• Tucker Carlson’s vulgar, offensive messages about colleagues helped seal his fate at Fox News.