The Bureau of Industry and Security this week fined British Virgin Islands-based company Hallewell Ventures and its owner, Albert Avdolyan, $374,474 for violating sanctions against Russia. BIS said Hallewell illegally reexported a Bombardier Global 7500 jet from the Maldives to Russia without a license.
A Canada-headquartered biotechnology company agreed to pay the Bureau of Industry and Security $685,051 after admitting to illegally exporting water quality testing and analytical instruments to Iran. BIS said the company knew the shipments violated U.S. export controls, adding that it worked to “conceal” the destination of the exports by falsely listing a United Arab Emirates freight forwarder as the ultimate consignee, undervalued the items to avoid UAE customs scrutiny, and left out references to Iran in the invoice.
Processing of most export license applications, as well as sanctions licenses, will pause during the government shutdown that began Oct. 1, although export enforcement operations and national security-related investigations will continue, the Commerce, State and Treasury departments said this week.
Turkish Airways will buy up to 75 advanced Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft and plans to purchase up to 150 more 737 MAX airplanes as part of a $30 billion deal with Boeing, the Commerce Department announced last week. "The $30 billion agreement for Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft will include an estimated $25 billion in U.S. export content," Commerce said.
House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., criticized the Bureau of Industry and Security’s new final rule rescinding the Biden administration’s increased restrictions on firearms exports (see 2509290045), saying the move will diminish government oversight of such transactions.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., introduced a resolution Sept. 29 urging the executive branch and U.S. allies to seize frozen Russian assets under the jurisdiction of Group of Seven nations and disburse them to Ukraine in tranches of at least $10 billion a month until expended.
A partial U.S. government shutdown Oct. 1 likely would slow but not stop the work of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., Freshfields said in a client alert Sept. 30.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation on Sept. 10 imposed a penalty of about $205,338 against pharmaceutical company Colorcon for making unlicensed payments to sanctioned Russian banks.
A Bureau of Industry and Security interim final rule that introduced a 50% ownership threshold rule for the Entity List and Military End-User List was released and effective Sept. 29 (see 2509290017).
The 60-day temporary general license in the Bureau of Industry and Security's new 50% rule (see 2509290017) is “very limited” and could push exporters to apply for licenses “on an expedited basis to avoid noncompliance,” Morgan Lewis said in a client alert.