Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law in comments he made to media outlets about unionization efforts at the company, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled Wednesday.

NLRB Administrative Law Judge Brian Gee cited interviews Jassy gave in 2022 to CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Bloomberg Television and at The New York Times’ DealBook conference. The interviews coincided with an upswing in union campaigns in Amazon’s warehouse and delivery operations.

Jassy told CNBC in April 2022 that if employees were to vote in a union, they may be less empowered in the workplace and things would become “much slower” and “more bureaucratic.” Similarly, in the Bloomberg interview, Jassy remarked, “if you see something on the line that you think could be better for your team or you or your customers, you can’t just go to your manager and say, ‘Let’s change it.'”

At the DealBook conference, Jassy said that without a union the workplace isn’t “bureaucratic, it’s not slow.”

Gee said the comments “threatened employees that, if they selected a union, they would become less empowered and would find it harder to get things done quickly.”

The NLRB filed the complaint against Amazon and Jassy in October 2022. In his ruling Wednesday, Gee said Jassy’s other comments that unionization would change workers’ relationship with their employer were lawful. But the Amazon chief’s other remarks that employees would be less empowered and “better off” without a union violated labor law, “because they went beyond merely commenting on the employee-employer relationship.”

Amazon spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis said in a statement that the company disagrees with the NLRB’s ruling and that it intends to appeal.

“The decision reflects poorly on the state of free speech rights today, and we remain optimistic that we will be able to continue to engage in a reasonable discussion on these issues where all perspectives have an opportunity to be heard,” Paradis said.

The judge recommends Amazon be ordered to “cease and desist” from making such comments in the future, and that the company be required to post and distribute a notice about the order to employees nationwide.

UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty on Wednesday told lawmakers that data from an estimated one-third of Americans could have been compromised in the cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare, and that the company paid a $22 million ransom to hackers.

Witty testified in front of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which falls under the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce. He said the investigation into the breach is still ongoing, so the exact number of people affected remains unknown. The one-third figure is a rough estimate.

UnitedHealth has previously said the cyberattack likely impacts a “substantial proportion of people in America,” according to an April release. The company confirmed that files containing protected health information and personally identifiable information were compromised in the breach. 

It will likely be months before UnitedHealth is able to notify individuals, given the “complexity of the data review,” the release said. The company is offering free access to identity theft protection and credit monitoring for individuals concerned about their data.

Witty also testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance on Wednesday, when he confirmed for the first time that the company paid a $22 million ransom to the hackers that breached Change Healthcare. At the hearing before the House legislators later that afternoon, Witty said the payment was made in bitcoin.

UnitedHealth disclosed that a cyberthreat actor breached part of Change Healthcare’s information technology network late in February. The company disconnected the affected systems when the threat was detected, and the disruption has caused widespread fallout across the U.S. health-care sector.

Witty told the subcommittee in his written testimony that the cyberattackers used “compromised credentials” to infiltrate Change Healthcare’s systems on Feb. 12 and deployed a ransomware that encrypted the network nine days later.

The portal that the bad actors initially accessed was not protected by multifactor authentication, or MFA, which requires users to verify their identities in at least two different ways. 

Witty told both committees Wednesday that UnitedHealth now has MFA in place across all external-facing systems.

Billionaire Masimo founder Joe Kiani, best known for his successful legal fight against Apple and his friendship with President Joe Biden, has borrowed against half of his $660 million stake in the health-technology company rather than sell his stock, according to corporate filings from earlier this week.

Borrowing against that much of a stake is unusual for executives, but may be helpful as the company prepares for a fight with an activist aiming to take control of the board. The move allows Kiani, the company’s CEO and chairman, to maintain his stake and voting power while also getting money he says he needs for family reasons.

Many medical-tech peers bar such moves, and it could leave Kiani susceptible to margin calls if Masimo’s stock falls below a certain threshold. Kiani has just under 4 million Masimo shares, or around 7.5% of the company, according to FactSet data.

Masimo, which makes wearables and health monitoring products, is preparing to fend off a second proxy fight waged by Quentin Koffey’s Politan Capital Management. Kiani described Koffey as “destructive” in a March CNBC interview.

Masimo shares are up 15% this year, lifting the company’s market cap past $7 billion. The stock had a volatile run in the back half of 2023, falling 47% in the third quarter before gaining 34% in the fourth.

Politan controls 8.9% of Masimo shares. While that’s bigger than Kiani’s stake, even before pledged shares are weighed, regulatory filings show that the CEO has options that could boost his holdings to 9.2% if exercised.

Politan already won two seats on Masimo’s six-person board in a contentious 2023 proxy fight, but announced last month that it would seek two more seats, including Kiani’s, to cement control.

Kiani, 59, pledged 2.97 million Masimo shares as of April, valued at $397 million, as collateral against “personal loans.” The company said in its annual filing Kiani had family “financial planning objectives” that would require him to sell his stock, but that he “did not want to diminish his shareholdings.” His objectives weren’t spelled out in the filings.

“The pledge of shares was pre-approved by the Board and reflects Mr. Kiani’s conviction in the value of Masimo stock despite the short-term decline in the stock price during the second half of 2023,” a Masimo spokesman said in an emailed statement. “Rather than sell his pledged shares, Mr. Kiani increased his pledge to maintain his stock ownership.”

The spokesperson added that Kiani purchased about $7 million worth of Masimo stock in the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023.

Kiani is a major Democratic donor who is reportedly close with President Biden. He also has an 8,000-acre winery in Santa Ynez, California, near Santa Barbara.  The lending is an increase from the year before, when Kiani only pledged 400,000 shares as collateral.

Masimo’s board also includes Bob Chapek, who joined in January, almost exactly a year after was he ousted as Disney’s CEO.

Several of Masimo’s peers, like Agilent, Stryker and Medtronic, don’t allow executives to pledge their shares. Companies generally frown upon stock pledging, though some, including Masimo, permit it with board approval. Stock-backed lending, or “Lombard loans,” generally requires a borrower to sell their shares if they fall below a certain value, which in the case of large shareholders can drive a stock price down even further.

Masimo’s earlier proxy fight was marked by litigation between the two sides that led to Politan winning $18 million in legal fees after forcing the company to abandon an effort to thwart the investment firm. There were also personal attacks. In regulatory filings, the company described Koffey as someone with “hubris” that was “no different than his more prominent peer Bill Ackman.”

Major shareholders, including Vanguard, sided with the activist, which said that Masimo had been marred by poor governance practices and the acquisition of Sound United, a consumer audio company. Masimo shares plummeted 37% the day the deal was announced in February 2022.

Last month, Masimo said it would spin off its consumer business, an announcement that boosted the stock. When Politan announced its second campaign days later, shares rose even higher. Politan has said news of the spinoff, made after the bell on a Friday and shortly before the activist announced its second campaign, was “rushed” when the company learned of the activist’s plans.

Masimo has denied that claim. The company has yet to file a proxy statement or schedule an annual meeting.

Masimo has had some success in recent months. The company pursued high-profile patent litigation against Apple, alleging that the company infringed on its pulse oximeter technology for the Apple Watch. After some initial setbacks, Masimo won a ruling that restricted the sale of some watches. The two companies remain in negotiations on the matter.

WATCH: Masimo CEO Joe Kiani on consumer spinoff and proxy fight