Good morning. The rising number of tankers and other vessels under sanctions on the world’s oceans poses a growing risk to commercial shipping, maritime executives and insurers warn, Risk Journal reports.

• More sanctioned ships: The U.S., European Union and U.K. are increasingly wielding sanctions to combat the so-called dark, or shadow, fleet, which ferries oil and other illicit goods to and from countries such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia. In just three years, 1,125 ships have been placed under sanction, according to maritime intelligence firm Windward.
   
• Trouble ahead? Shipping executives and industry specialists say it is only a matter of time before one of the aging, poorly maintained dark fleet vessels causes a major maritime disaster. Cleanup operations are likely to be complex because sanctions complicate or prevent claim payments. “We’ve created a monster with the parallel fleet,” said Mike Salthouse, head of external affairs at U.K.-based NorthStandard, one of the world’s largest dedicated marine insurers.
   
• Recent example: That risk was illustrated last week when a sanctioned Russian tanker was detected drifting off the coast of Algeria, with its navigation status changed to “not under command” before it stopped sharing its location, according to news reports. The tanker, called Progress, on Monday appeared to have resumed its course under power, according to vesseltracker.com.

Deutsche Bank offices searched by German prosecutors in money-laundering probe.

German prosecutors searched Deutsche Bank’s offices in Frankfurt and Berlin as part of an investigation into allegations of money laundering.

The Frankfurt prosecutor’s office said Wednesday that it was conducting a preliminary investigation into managers and employees of Deutsche Bank on suspected money laundering. The bank maintained business relationships with foreign companies that are suspected of having been used for money laundering in other investigations, the prosecutor’s office added.

U.K. competition watchdog plans new rules for Google’s AI overviews under tech law.

The U.K.’s competition watchdog said it is seeking feedback on a pack of measures Alphabet’s Google would need to implement under the country’s new digital-competition rules.

The Competition and Markets Authority said Wednesday that, under its plans, Google might have to provide publishers with more  choice and transparency over how their content is used in the search giant’s AI Overviews, the company’s artificial-intelligence feature which produces AI-generated summaries of search results.

• The U.S. hasn’t ruled out seizing ships in the tanker fleet delivering Iranian oil to China as it works to pressure Tehran, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Risk Journal’s Richard Vanderford reports.
   
• British authorities are ramping up scrutiny of the digital-assets sector, launching a coordinated multiagency effort to combat sanctions evasion and money laundering involving cryptocurrency, Risk Journal reports. 
   
• The Russian government proposed making what it calls parallel imports permanent, continuing to allow importation of products without consent of the manufacturer or intellectual property rights holder, Risk Journal reports.
   
• Google will pay $135 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the Alphabet unit programmed its Android operating system to illegally collect consumers’ cellular data.
   
• Google has aimed a knockout blow at a massive cyber weapon that researchers say is running silently on millions of devices in the homes of consumers.
   
• Elon Musk is suing OpenAI in federal court, alleging that the AI giant manipulated him into thinking he was contributing tens of millions of dollars to help launch a nonprofit. A judge ruled this month that the case will go to trial. It is expected to start in April in Oakland, Calif.

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Fed holds rates steady for first time since July.

The Federal Reserve entered a new holding pattern on interest rates Wednesday and signaled little urgency to resume cuts after contentious reductions at officials’ three previous meetings.

The decision to hold the benchmark federal-funds rate steady in a range between 3.5% and 3.75% was approved on a 10-2 vote.

• Why Powell Won’t Say if He Is Staying on the Fed Board

• Saudi Arabia on Tuesday ruled out the use of its airspace and territory for a potential U.S. attack on Iran, complicating the Trump administration’s options in response to Tehran’s violent crackdown against Iranian protesters.
   
• President Trump’s ultimatum to Iran to negotiate away its nuclear program or face a possible attack leaves Tehran with a daunting dilemma: Either path risks putting the already weakened regime in a more precarious position.
   
• Amazon.com said it would cut around 16,000 corporate employees, the latest step in the technology giant’s efforts to slim down its workforce.
   
• Trump-era trade deals open new markets, but sellers still need to find buyers. In contrast to traditional free-trade pacts, in which economies drop financial and other barriers to trade, the new Trump-era agreements extracted more one-sided concessions.

• The Census Bureau’s first snapshot of population data for 2025 confirms some big trends, like a major shift in immigration as the U.S. cracks down on border crossings and steps up deportations.
   
• Wells Fargo’s wealth- and investment-management division severed ties to Institutional Shareholder Services, a person familiar with the matter said, the latest blow to a proxy-advisory industry under siege.
   
• Spain’s decision to give legal residency to potentially half a million undocumented immigrants shows the country is an outlier among Western democracies in treating them as an asset, rather than a threat.
   
• Mayor Zohran Mamdani says New York City is facing an unexpected $10 billion projected budget deficit in the coming year and plans to push state lawmakers to increase taxes on high-income New Yorkers and corporations to close the hole.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

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