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The Morning Risk Report: Nestlé Chairman to Step Down After Abrupt CEO Firing
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By David Smagalla | Dow Jones Risk Journal
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Good morning. Nestlé said Chairman Paul Bulcke would step down after nearly a decade at the helm of the board following the abrupt ouster of former Chief Executive Officer Laurent Freixe earlier this month.
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Corporate changes: The Swiss maker of Nescafe coffee and Purina pet food said Tuesday that Pablo Isla would replace Bulcke as chairman effective Oct. 1. Bulcke, who has been chairman of the board of directors since 2017, is leaving before the end of his mandate. Isla is currently vice chairman of the board. Bulcke had been due to hand over the reins to Isla in April 2026.
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More tumult: Bulcke’s resignation comes weeks after Nestlé dismissed former Chief Executive Laurent Freixe after the company said it had conducted an investigation into an undisclosed romantic relationship with a direct subordinate that breached the group’s code of conduct.
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Actions by the board: The board had ordered that probe, overseen by Bulcke and lead independent director Isla, with the support of independent outside counsel. Nestlé didn’t identify the employee in the relationship with Freixe. A person familiar with the situation said no one from the executive board had such a relationship with Freixe. Freixe didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Also see: Sex Scandals. Accounting Fraud. It’s All Showing Up on the Corporate Hotline.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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Banking: Building a 7-Layer Fortress Against Deepfakes
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Using a defense-in-depth approach to cybersecurity can help counter AI-powered deepfake fraud, enhancing customer confidence and asset protection. Read More
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President Donald Trump reiterated his call for companies to ditch quarterly reporting in a post on Truth Social early Monday. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
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Trump’s call for ditching quarterly earnings is already a fact in Europe.
President Donald Trump wants companies to ditch quarterly reporting and instead post results every six months — a move that could be dramatic for U.S. investors but has international precedent.
A six-month corporate reporting schedule is already used in Europe. European companies report twice a year, although they sometimes give more frequent updates.
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South Korea probes allegations of human-rights violations tied to Hyundai raid.
South Korea is conducting a government investigation into potential human-rights violations against more than 300 Korean citizens related to the U.S. immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor construction site in Georgia earlier this month.
The outrage rose a notch following the repatriation of 316 South Koreans on Friday. Some of the Koreans, who had been shackled during the initial raid, described a range of alleged mistreatment, from moldy beds to the absence of on-hand interpreters to being held in 70-person temporary detention cells. One worker told local media he hadn’t been read his Miranda rights.
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TikTok’s U.S. business would be controlled by an investor consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz under a framework the U.S. and China are finalizing as talks shift into high gear, according to people familiar with the matter.
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A Silicon Valley research arm created by Huawei should turn over information on its corporate structure, two prominent U.S. lawmakers said, arguing the Chinese company has used it to try to gain control of internet standards for Beijing.
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Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust has agreed in principle to settle a suit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations its lending product violated investor-protection laws, Risk Journal’s Mengqi Sun reports.
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Hong Kong’s securities regulator banned a former Citigroup executive from the industry for five years, reports Risk Journal’s Max Fillion.
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A jury in Miami convicted a Georgia businessman of bribing Honduran government officials in exchange for contracts to manufacture equipment for the country’s national police force, reports Risk Journal.
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A federal appeals court on Monday night rejected an emergency Trump administration request to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook ahead of the central bank’s meeting that began Tuesday.
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The Senate confirmed President Trump’s senior economic adviser Stephen Miran to join the Federal Reserve board.
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The European Union has to advance its review of how its merger rules are applied, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said, as former ECB head Mario Draghi called for a fast-track process.
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4
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The number of new members the Securities and Exchange Commission has put forward for its Investor Advisory Committee, which considers regulatory priorities for the agency. Of the four, one is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-tank, and another is a co-founder of a compliance artificial intelligence company.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
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China’s message on Nvidia: We have leverage too.
The U.S. and China are close to wrapping up a deal to keep TikTok running in the U.S. China, for its part, is angling for a Trump visit to Beijing and now seems a step closer to getting it.
But for all their symbolism, neither a Trump-Xi meeting nor a TikTok deal gets to the heart of the U.S.-China economic relationship. The U.S. is still imposing tariffs of at least 30% and sometimes much more on most Chinese goods, and it is restricting China from accessing some of the most critical artificial-intelligence and semiconductor technology.
China is signaling it wants a second deal on technology and is using an antitrust probe into Nvidia as leverage.
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Jaguar Land Rover extends production shutdown after cyberattack.
Jaguar Land Rover has extended a production shutdown into next week as it continues to grapple with the fallout from a cyberattack.
The British automaker, owned by India’s Tata Motors, said Tuesday that production will remain halted until Sept. 24, extending the stoppage to more than three weeks.
Background: The company, which manufacturers Land Rover, Jaguar and Range Rover models, stopped production at the beginning of September after reporting manufacturing and retail operations had been severely disrupted by a cyberattack.
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Workers across the country who’ve mocked Charlie Kirk’s death online have quickly learned their words can get them fired.
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Israel launched a long-anticipated ground offensive into Gaza City early Tuesday morning, Israel’s military said, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to end the war against Hamas with military force instead of diplomacy.
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Canadian fashion retailer Ssense was already on the brink of financial distress. Then, the U.S. rolled back a tariff exemption that allowed shoppers to buy up to $800 in goods duty-free. The end of the de minimis exemption pushed Ssense over the edge and into bankruptcy in Canada.
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Since President Donald Trump halted the so-called “de minimis” exemption allowing cheaper goods to flow into the U.S. tariff-free, businesses small and large operating in the U.S., including companies like FedEx and Lululemon Athletica, have said it has created confusion, higher costs and snags in shipments from abroad.
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Deepfake attacks require human cooperation, but people can sometimes scramble those attacks by asking everyday questions, cyber experts say. Photo: Guido Kirchner/Zuma Press
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Want to foil an AI deepfake? Tell it to draw a smiley face.
Faced with an onslaught of increasingly sophisticated deepfake scams, some companies are turning to low-tech tactics to foil artificial intelligence-powered audio and video impostors.
The tactics, including verbal passphrases, off-topic questions and hand-drawn signs, offer a rare instance of targeted companies getting the upper hand in an escalating AI arms race with deepfake attackers, cybersecurity experts say. Done right, these and other analog tricks can unmask even the most well-trained AI models, they say.
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Utah prosecutors unveiled seven charges Tuesday against Tyler Robinson in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a college campus last week and said they would seek the death penalty.
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In her first public comments since President Trump fired her, the former head of the government agency that measures inflation and job growth called her dismissal “a dangerous step” for the economy.
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President Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, his latest legal attack against a major news outlet.
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Major American tech companies said they would spend more than $40 billion to expand artificial-intelligence infrastructure in the U.K.
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At Russia’s biggest annual military exercises this week, one guest got a surprise front row seat: The U.S. military.
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