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The Morning Risk Report: U.S. Threatens Egypt With Sanctions Over Russian Arms Deal |
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| President Trump meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September. PHOTO: SAUL LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES |
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Good morning. The U.S. has warned Egypt of possible sanctions over Cairo’s decision to proceed with a purchase of Russian warplanes, a new source of friction with a country whose leader has been lauded by President Trump. The warning came in a letter Wednesday from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urging Egypt’s defense minister to cancel a deal to buy Russian Su-35 warplanes. The letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said Egypt risked sanctions under a U.S. law barring purchases of Russian military equipment. [Continued below…] |
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The U.S. has provided Egypt with billions in military and economic aid in recent decades, including sales of F-16 jet fighters, attack helicopters and other armaments. Russia has taken a more forward stance in the Middle East in recent years, providing crucial military support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and selling a missile-defense system to Turkey, an ostensible U.S. ally. The letter was sent as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in Cairo for talks about military cooperation. Egypt, seeking to strengthen its military alliance with Russia, earlier this year signed a $2 billion agreement with Moscow to buy more than 20 Su-35 jet fighters. |
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Corporate Compliance in a Disrupted World |
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Digital disruption, shifting workplace norms and the rapidly changing state of world affairs have added new dimensions to corporate compliance. Join The Wall Street Journal in New York on Nov. 19 for a live discussion with chief compliance officers from leading companies about how their focus is changing. For details and to register, click here. |
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| From Risk & Compliance Journal |
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Former Executive at Chinese Bank Pleads Guilty in Bid-Rigging Case |
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A former vice president at the New York brokerage unit of a large Chinese bank pleaded guilty to a criminal antitrust charge, the latest defendant ensnared in a federal crackdown on the market for American depositary receipts. Peter Volino, a former vice president at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC, admitted to violating bid-rigging laws by participating in a scheme to submit artificially low bids, the U.S. Justice Department said. Mr. Volino’s guilty plea is the fourth secured by the Justice Department as part of a continuing investigation into prerelease ADRs, prosecutors said. |
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| House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday’s testimony ‘corroborated evidence of bribery’ by President Trump. PHOTO: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS |
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) alleged President Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine amounted to bribery, using a term specifically mentioned in the Constitution as an impeachable offense. The words marked Mrs. Pelosi’s strongest comments about the accusations in the Ukraine matter, a day after the Democrats held their first public hearing in the probe. The Constitution defines grounds for impeachment of the president and other federal officials as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” She said Wednesday’s testimony “corroborated evidence of bribery” by Mr. Trump. In remarks to reporters Thursday, Mrs. Pelosi said the bribe was “to grant or withhold military assistance in return for a public statement of a fake investigation into the elections.” Trump Asks Supreme Court to Block Subpoena for Tax Records |
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Former executives at Under Armour, the sportswear company whose accounting is under federal investigation, said they scrambled to meet aggressive sales targets, borrowing business from future quarters to mask slowing demand in 2016 for its athletic apparel. The Baltimore company frequently leaned on retailers to take products early and redirected goods intended for its factory stores to off-price chains to book sales in the final days of a quarter, according to former executives in sales, logistics, merchandising and finance. In April, German payments company Wirecard AG was under pressure after allegations about its accounting practices in Asia—strongly denied by Wirecard—prompted a police investigation in Singapore. Later that month, Wirecard announced a $1 billion investment with an affiliate of SoftBank. The funds lent the Japanese tech investor’s imprimatur to Wirecard, but SoftBank Group itself put no money into the deal. Instead, the money came from the personal accounts of a set of SoftBank employees and one outside investor, according to SoftBank employees with knowledge of the deal. Uber has requested a hearing with Los Angeles officials after the city suspended its permit to rent out electric scooters over a data-sharing dispute. The move, made last week, buys Uber more time during which it can continue renting its Jump-branded scooters to customers. The hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet. A top bank regulator is poised to propose changes to bank lending requirements that could potentially transform the way lenders make billions of dollars in loans and investments in lower-income communities. As TikTok—the wildly popular video-sharing app from China—encounters suspicion in Washington, D.C., regulators and users are unfazed in its largest international market: India. The app has blown up in the South Asian nation more than anywhere else outside of China. China has agreed to lift a more than four-year-old ban on U.S. poultry imports, both governments said, in what a U.S. industry group said could lead to sales of about $2 billion of poultry. American poultry had been banned in China since 2015 following an outbreak of avian influenza. Amazon said Thursday it would protest the Pentagon’s award of a massive cloud-computing contract to Microsoft in October, throwing yet another wrench in the long-running procurement battle. |
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| The changes to Google’s ad exchange will take effect in February. PHOTO: SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES |
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Google said its ad exchange would stop telling advertisers what categories of websites users are visiting, a concession to European data-protection authorities that have said the company’s real-time ad auctions violate European Union privacy laws. The changes will affect the process behind the electronic auction that happens in milliseconds to determine which ads show up when users load a website. In that time, hundreds of potential bidders can find out information about users, including their location, the unique number associated with their mobile device and even whether they have been reading about a disease, religion or politics. After the changes, which take effect in February, advertisers will still have access to data such as locations and unique device numbers, but no longer the contextual category describing the website on which the ad would appear. The address of the website will remain available to advertisers. |
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| In its closely-scrutinized monthly oil market report, OPEC cut its 2020 non-OPEC production growth estimate by 34,000 barrels a day to 2.17 million barrels a day. PHOTO: STRINGER/REUTERS |
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The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries lowered its oil production growth forecast for non-cartel countries for 2020, citing a downward adjustment to its forecast for the U.S. In its closely-scrutinized monthly oil market report, OPEC cut its 2020 non-OPEC production growth estimate by 34,000 barrels a day to 2.17 million barrels a day. The sharp rise of U.S. shale oil and gas has combined in recent months with sagging economic data and the continuing U.S.-China trade war to worry oil investors about the prospect of glutted inventories and falling demand. |
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| C. Allen Parker, Wells Fargo & Co.’s general counsel who served as interim CEO earlier this year, is leaving the bank. PHOTO: HANDOUT/REUTERS |
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Wells Fargo said that General Counsel C. Allen Parker, who recently served a stint as interim chief executive, will leave the bank at the end of March. This marks the first departure from the executive management team since Charles Scharf took over as permanent CEO of the beleaguered bank in late October. Pope Francis named a new head of the Vatican’s finance office, filling a long-vacant role as he presses officials to close a yawning budget deficit and bring order to the Holy See’s troubled finances. As prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, the Rev. Juan Antonio Guerrero will oversee preparation of budgets and financial statements and compliance with international financial standards in the Holy See and in Vatican City State, the sovereign territory inside Italy ruled by the pope. |
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| Premium car makers such as Daimler are under pressure from a growing number of competitors, including Tesla and Volvo. PHOTO: RONALD WITTEK/SHUTTERSTOCK |
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Daimler said it aims to reduce labor costs by $1.1 billion by 2022 and warned that costs associated with job cuts and efforts to meet stricter emission targets would dent profits for the next two years. The auto industry is being squeezed by the high costs of developing new electric cars. Premium manufacturers such as Daimler are also under pressure from a growing number of competitors. |
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