Multiple users reported, starting last month, issues with downloading data files on sanctions lists from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control website after OFAC said it made changes regarding its HTTP request methods, the agency said in a March 20 notice. OFAC said the changes affected users that “leverage command line connections” to the Treasury’s website. Those who download OFAC sanctions data files “manually via browser” are not be impacted by the change, according to the notice. The change allows for users to only request sanctions data files via HTTP using GET commands, as opposed to both GET and POST commands, OFAC said. The agency said the change is permanent and was “made to improve the security for public file repositories.” The agency said questions about the change should be emailed to O_F_A_C@treasury.gov; OFAC’s technical support hotline is at 1-800-540-6322 (menu option 8).

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s recent action of sanctioning Evrofinance -- a Russian bank the U.S. suspects of working with the Venezuelan government -- was a two-part warning to Venezuela, the Kremlin and others, trade lawyer and former OFAC senior sanctions policy adviser Michael Dobson said in an interview. The U.S. will not hesitate to tighten restrictions on Venezuela, Dobson said, and it does not feel constrained to sanction “outside actors” assisting the Nicolas Maduro regime. The sanction (see 1903110014), announced in a March 11 OFAC notice, will be published in the March 22 Federal Register. Dobson, now a lawyer at Morrison Foerster, said he suspects Evrofinance of being a “very narrow vehicle” set up by Russia and Venezuela to facilitate trade and to “release some of the pressure from the Maduro regime's decreasing access to U.S. dollars.” The action will likely not become a trend for Venezuela, Dobson said, but a stand-alone action wherein the U.S. was able to enforce evasions of sanctions. “I think it’s just a warning,” Dobson said, adding that as long as U.S. companies aren’t doing business with Venezuela or Evrofinance, “I don't think this is going to have significant ripple effects.”

Testing for commodity jurisdiction requests in the State Department’s Defense Export Control and Compliance System (DECCS) won’t begin until the week of March 25, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said in an updated message on its website. The message had previously said testing would begin March 20 (see 1903200046). “Another announcement will be posted when the system is available for testing,” DDTC said.

Valery Kosmachov was extradited from Estonia to face federal charges in the U.S. related to a "scheme to illegally procure sophisticated electronic components" and smuggle them to Russia, the Department of Justice said in a March 20 news release. The indictment was filed in September 2017 but was only unsealed on March 20, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Kosmachov was arrested in September 2018 and extradited to the U.S. on March 14, the DOJ said.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its Specially Designated Nationals List while also issuing an updated guide on “addressing North Korea’s illicit shipping practices,” which includes risk mitigation measures and a summary of penalties for violators, according to a March 21 notice. The changes made to OFAC’s SDN list include the additions of three individuals associated with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an update to the SDN listing for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and the addition of two Chinese entities that violated North Korean sanctions regulations. The two Chinese entities are Dalian Haibo International Freight Co. and Liaoning Danxing International Forwarding Co., according to the notice.

The Federal Maritime Commission released a notice of the filing of the following agreements under the Shipping Act of 1984. Interested parties may submit comments on the agreement by email to Secretary@fmc.gov, or by mail to the Secretary, Federal Maritime Commission, Washington, DC 20573, within 12 days of publication in the Federal Register, that is, by April 1.

The World Customs Organization issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:​​

In the March 20 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

There seems to be some confusion over whether Authorized Economic Operator trusted trader status will continue to offer the same benefits to United Kingdom participants after March 29 if there's a no-deal Brexit, the BBC said in a March 19 report. While some have emphasized that AEO status could ease trade frictions after Brexit, the European Commission said in a notice last year that AEO authorizations from the U.K. would no longer be considered valid in the EU after Brexit. There's been an increase in U.K. AEO applications in recent months, but the U.K. is now urging companies to take part in the U.K.'s Transitional Simplified Procedures instead, the BBC said. "AEO status will only suit traders that regularly interact with customs and carry out high volumes of customs transactions," an HM Revenue and Customs spokesman told the BBC. "For most UK firms TSP will be the most practical system to import into the UK from the EU if we leave without a deal."

The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices as of March 20 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):