The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week updated a range of entries on its Specially Designated Nationals List to include the fact that they're a "secondary sanctions risk." The change impacts sanctioned people and entities with ties to China, Russia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and other regions. OFAC didn't immediately release more information.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned five people and three companies with ties to a Lebanon-based sanctions evasion network supporting the terror group Hezbollah.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is ending its work in the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council as part of a broader effort to pull back from traditional export control dialogues with allies, Jeffrey Kessler, the head of BIS, said in a closed-door meeting with agency officials last week. Kessler also said the agency plans to significantly increase export enforcement against China, warned about possible staffing cuts, urged officials to tamp down on conversations with industry, and said it’s unclear whether existing export controls against Russia will be maintained.
A Federal Maritime Commission administrative law judge ordered Taiwan-based ocean carrier Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. March 24 to pay $517.50 of the approximately $1.3 million that shipper Supply Source sought for what it said were unfair demurrage and detention fees charged in 2021 and 2022.
The U.S. has halted contributions to the World Trade Organization, Reuters reported. The global trade body has a $232.06 million annual budget, 11% of which is set to come from the U.S. based on a fee system that requires payment proportionate to a member country's share of global trade, the report said. A U.S. delegate reportedly told the WTO that payments for 2024 and 2025 are on hold pending a review of contributions to international organizations.
The U.K. said it generally won’t penalize an organization for using a “suspense account” to temporarily record sanctioned assets, the country’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in new frequently asked question 145 published this week.
China’s Commerce Ministry this week issued a new guidance document about how the country interprets and plans to strengthen its trade policy compliance, particularly with World Trade Organization rules. The guidance calls on various Chinese government offices to make sure any proposed policies comply with WTO rules, and it stressed that China should “respond to foreign compliance concerns” raised at the WTO while also raising concerns at the trade body “about other members' illegal measures.”
The State Department approved a possible $1.96 billion military sale to Qatar, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said this week. The sale includes eight "MQ-9B Remotely Piloted Aircraft" and related equipment. The principal contractors will be General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp., L3Harris, Boeing and Leonardo SpA.
A federal government payment website, Pay.gov, will be offline March 29 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT for the release of a new version of the application, the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said. "This outage will affect users paying their Registration fees during this window," it said.
DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 26 looking to collect $47 million in proceeds from the sale of nearly "one million barrels of Iranian petroleum," claiming the money is property of, or "affording a person a source of influence over," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its Qods Force, DOJ announced.