Good morning. The Federal Trade Commission warned four leading payment processors against denying customers access to financial services due to their political or religious views.

• Who are the targets? The letters, sent by FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson to the chief executives of Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Stripe, cited President Trump’s August executive order on “debanking,” which Ferguson said “makes clear that it is unacceptable to debank law-abiding citizens due to ‘political affiliations, religious beliefs, or lawful business activities.’”
   
• What the FTC alleges: Ferguson wrote that deplatforming of customers or denial of access to services “that is inconsistent with their terms of service or a customer’s reasonable expectations” could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement actions for violations of the FTC Act.
   
• Examples cited: In the letters to Stripe and PayPal, Ferguson added that concerns have been raised about the two companies’ “efforts to deny [customers] access to services due to their political or religious views,” adding that such conduct may not be in accordance with the companies’ terms of service. Among other examples, he cited Stripe’s decision to stop processing payments for Trump’s campaign website following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 
   
• Background: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a top banking regulator, said in December that it had found early evidence that several leading U.S. banks had improperly declined to do business with politically sensitive industries. Trump also sued JPMorgan Chase for $5 billion earlier this year, alleging that the bank closed Trump’s accounts for political reasons following the Capitol riot.

Risk Journal on March 31 hosts a discussion on debanking and fair access banking laws with Will Jacquet, a partner at Morgan Lewis and former head of enforcement at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and Eric Young, senior managing director, Guidepost Solutions, and a former chief compliance officer. You can register here.

Meta is in risky legal territory after back-to-back court losses.

For Meta Platforms, which made $60 billion in profit last year, getting hit with legal damages of a few million dollars is ordinarily a nonevent.

But back-to-back jury verdicts holding the company liable for harms to young people could open the way to a flood of litigation that could force it—and other social-media giants—to make significant changes to the way they design and deliver their products.

That is the view of some legal experts, but also the stated position of Meta itself, which argued heading into the trials in California and New Mexico that for juries to endorse the theory of the cases against them would challenge their ability to keep serving products used daily by billions of people.

Oil market won’t react quickly to U.S. sanctions waivers, experts say.

The global oil market is unlikely to take advantage of the temporary sanctions waivers the U.S. granted to try to lower crude prices during the war with Iran, according to trade experts.

“Strategies don’t change this rapidly,” Glenn Kaminsky, a managing director at KPMG, said Thursday during a Risk Journal webinar. “I don’t know how much this is going to be a relief valve until there is more clarity for businesses longer term.”

The Trump administration has in recent weeks taken steps to temporarily loosen sanctions restrictions on Russian and Iranian oil as crude prices soar because of the war in Iran. Kaminsky said it is hard for businesses to determine whether the moves are the start of a longer-term opening of such markets because of volatile relations with both countries over the past year.

• A federal court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that an ad-industry coalition including the brands CVS Health, Lego, Colgate-Palmolive and Mars illegally boycotted Elon Musk’s social-media company X.
   
• The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against the prominent hospital system NewYork-Presbyterian, alleging that it used restrictions in its contracts with insurers to limit price competition and block lower-cost healthcare options.
   
• European Union lawmakers voted to advance talks on the bloc’s trade deal with the U.S., bringing officials one step closer to implementing the accord.
   
• The Federal Communications Commission advanced a plan to bring outsourced call center jobs back to the U.S., voting Thursday to open the proposal to public comments and paving the way to adoption later this year.
   
• The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group is calling on companies to submit climate and sustainability reports, even if they sit outside of the European Union’s requirements for large companies to submit that data, Yusuf Khan writes for Risk Journal.
   
• The U.K. government imposed sanctions on Thursday on what it called “a cryptocurrency network” through which it said stolen personal data could be sold to fraudsters.
   
• The U.K. Supreme Court ruled that banks are prohibited from making payments under standby letters of credit, which are financial guarantees used widely as security against a buyer’s default, if the underlying transaction is linked to sanctioned Russian activity, Risk Journal reports.
   
• The European Union is intensifying efforts to enforce compliance with online child-protection rules, launching a probe into Snapchat and warning pornography platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos that they aren’t doing enough to prevent minors from accessing adult content.
   
• Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena said its board suspended Chief Executive Luigi Lovaglio from his duties after a minority shareholder proposed him for another mandate defying the board’s plan to appoint a new head.
   
• GlobalFoundries sued Tower Semiconductor, alleging the rival chip manufacturer infringed on its patents.

You can listen to new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon.

Trump says the energy shock will be short-lived. CEOs paint a scarier picture.

Standing in front of a crowd of oil-and-gas executives this week, Energy Secretary Chris Wright reiterated that the chaos in global energy markets birthed by the U.S.-Iran war would be “short term.”

But on the stage and sidelines of a global energy conference in Houston, chief executives painted a much bleaker picture: Financial markets aren’t accurately reflecting the gravity of the crisis, the war is crippling the world’s fuel supplies, and the industry’s Middle East operations are at risk, they said.

• Energy-Price Shock Hits a World Already Buried in Debt
• Middle East Conflict to Push U.S. Inflation Sharply Higher, Says OECD
• Israel Races to Cripple Iran’s Arms Production Before War Ends
• Iran Is Applying the Lessons of Russia’s Drone Warfare Against America

European leaders weigh bigger role for business in stopping cybercrime.

European governments are exploring ways the private sector can take a more active role in cyber defense, from partnering on law enforcement operations to responding to state-level attacks, James Rundle reports for Risk Journal.

Several European Union regulations set to come into force over the next few years will impose product security standards, expand the power of the bloc’s cybersecurity regulator and deepen public-private ties. 

But because much of cyberspace is owned and run by companies, government mandates only go so far, said Christiane Kirketerp de Viron, acting director for digital society, trust and cybersecurity at the European Commission. Modern threats require governments to treat industry as an operational peer, said Kireketerp de Viron, speaking on the sidelines of the RSAC Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

• For five decades, U.S. presidents have stuck to a choreographed set of norms around Taiwan, the most dangerous flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. Xi Jinping is betting President Trump is ready to tear up the American playbook.
   
• WSJ’s Gordon Fairclough sits down with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to discuss the deepening rift between Spain and President Trump, and how it’s testing the trans-Atlantic alliance.
   
• Air Canada Chief Executive Michael Rousseau issued an apology Thursday about his inability to speak French after facing sharp criticism from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
   
• A continuing dispute between Jeep parent company Stellantis and a parts supplier derailed production of the new Jeep Cherokee, according to a lawsuit filed in Michigan on Wednesday.