Good morning. The Justice Department is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against some of the country’s biggest egg producers over allegations they coordinated pricing through an information service that benchmarks prices for the industry, according to people familiar with the matter.

• Who are they targeting? The civil lawsuit would target major producers including Cal-Maine Foods and Versova, which significantly hiked egg prices in 2024 and 2025 due to a supply shortage attributed to avian flu. The competing producers share pricing information with Expana, a service that uses sales data to compile a benchmark price used by the producers.
   
• Alleged price collusion: The investigation is the latest case of antitrust enforcers targeting competitors for sharing sensitive information through middlemen who recommend or help set prices. The Justice Department earlier sued RealPage, a service used by apartment landlords, and Agri Stats, a consultant that assists the country’s biggest poultry producers with pricing. RealPage settled the federal claims, agreeing to limit the nonpublic data it can use to propose rents to landlords. The Agri Stats trial is scheduled for next month.
   
• Food prices a key Trump focus: An egg case, which could be filed as soon as next month, would show the Trump administration’s eagerness to focus its antitrust powers on food prices, even as it warms to dealmaking in other industries and looks to settle major cases inherited from the Biden administration. The Justice Department is separately investigating the markets for beef, fertilizer and crop seeds.

The Dow Jones Risk Journal Summit London on May 7 will convene senior business professionals for discussions on a range of corporate risks including supply chains, artificial intelligence, geopolitics and financial crime.

Speakers include: Kathy Wengel, EVP, Chief Technical Operations and Risk Officer, Johnson & Johnson; Nish Imthiyaz, Global Privacy and Responsible AI Counsel, Vodafone; and Will Mayes, Chief Executive, Cyber Monitoring Centre.

Request a complimentary invitation here.

GE aerospace unit to pay $36 million to settle export-control violations.

General Electric’s aerospace unit will pay $36 million to settle a U.S. investigation into export-control violations, including some related to the unauthorized export of technical data to China, Risk Journal reports (free link).

The U.S. State Department said Friday that GE Aerospace agreed to resolve 116 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations. GE Aerospace voluntarily disclosed the violations and had fully cooperated with the review, putting in place numerous improvements to its ITAR compliance program, the State Department said.

FedEx settles U.S. employment agency’s lawsuit over back-to-office demands.

FedEx has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. employment rights agency over the parcel carrier’s post-Covid efforts to force New York-based workers to return to the office, Risk Journal’s Richard Vanderford reports (free link).

The company failed to take into account the needs of disabled dispatchers when it forced them back to work, violating U.S. disability law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Friday.

• A compromise House proposal to renew a powerful national-security surveillance program for five years failed to advance early Friday, an embarrassing setback for Republican Party leaders who thought they could muscle the measure over the finish line in overnight votes.
   
• A federal judge halted the $6.2 billion merger of television station giants Nexstar Media Group and Tegna after eight states and satellite broadcaster DirecTV sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds.
   
• The U.S. Treasury on Friday said it has imposed sanctions on a group of Iraqi militia commanders accused of orchestrating attacks on American personnel and interests, a move aimed at curbing the influence of Iran-aligned armed groups across Iraq.
   
• The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank announced Thursday they are resuming engagement with Venezuela, ending a seven-year suspension and recognizing the administration of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, as the two institutions moved in a coordinated step to restore ties with the country (free link).
   
• The Justice Department told French law enforcement authorities it wouldn’t facilitate their efforts to investigate Elon Musk’s X, after a raid on the social-media platform’s Paris office earlier this year.
   
• Deere settled a lawsuit with farmers, agreeing to pay $99 million and expand software access for equipment repairs.
   
• The White House is pushing to allow more vape flavors on the market for the first time in years, but Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary opposes the move and is blocking the plan, people familiar with the matter said.

Trump says Iran talks are on, sparking push to bridge gaping divides.

Vice President JD Vance is expected to lead a new round of peace talks with Iran in Pakistan this week in a fresh effort to end the war, but there still appear to be significant gaps between both sides as the U.S. pushes Iran to lock up its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Vance is expected to arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for talks with Iran on Tuesday, although Iran was still threatening on Sunday that it wouldn’t attend talks, saying Washington’s demands remain excessive. Pakistan helped broker a two-week cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran that expires on Tuesday night.

Trump warned on social media Sunday that Iran would face airstrikes that would destroy power plants and bridges if it didn’t accept a deal, and accused Tehran of breaching an initial cease-fire by firing on shipping trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also said on Sunday that the U.S. had seized an Iranian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman that attempted to get past the U.S. blockade.

• Big Oil Plows Billions Into Far-Flung Drilling Sites to Escape Iran Turmoil
• U.A.E. Asks U.S. About a Wartime Financial Lifeline
• Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears

Anthropic CEO meets Trump administration officials as feud thaws.

Dario Amodei and top Trump administration officials on Friday discussed how to responsibly unleash the company’s powerful new AI model, in one of the Anthropic CEO’s highest-profile efforts to ease tensions with the government.

Risks discussed. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were among those who attended the meeting, people familiar with the matter said. Bessent has been warning financial industry executives about the cyber risks posed by Anthropic’s latest model, Mythos. The White House is racing to prepare for the model, which the company says could pose cybersecurity risks that cause widespread online disruption.

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Friday that President Trump considers the present U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade treaty to be a poor deal that needs to be “reconsidered and reimagined.”
   
• U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing fresh calls to resign after he was accused of misleading Parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, a longtime friend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as ambassador to the U.S.
   
• Blue Owl Capital’s co-CEOs removed one drag on its stock by revising the terms of personal loans they took out against their shares.
   
• Elite Chinese youths, businesspeople and scientists are increasingly returning home as the U.S.’s allure fades.
   
• Meta Platforms is reportedly planning yet another round of layoffs as the company aims to tighten its focus on artificial intelligence.

How cybercrime became a leading industry in ‘Scambodia.'

A gold-hued skyscraper is rising above the traffic-clogged streets of the capital city on the Mekong River. The building is already Cambodia’s tallest structure—and a monument to the spoils generated by transnational cybergangs that have stolen billions of dollars from unsuspecting Americans and others worldwide.

Scammy reputation. The skyscraper is being built by a company under sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department for its alleged connection to one of hundreds of scam operations that have cropped up across Cambodia. Scam compounds, some the size of small towns, have housed enslaved workers doing the grunt work of online scams, posing as love interests, investors or police. Predominantly Chinese syndicates operating in Cambodia have grown so enormous in scale that some foreign politicians refer to the country of 18 million people as “Scambodia.”