The Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated an air transport service provider for its involvement in the shipment of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia, according to a Sept. 8 press release. Additionally, OFAC is designating three companies and one individual involved in the research, development, production and procurement of Iranian UAV components.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Sept. 8 extended a Russia-related general license that authorizes the payment of certain taxes and import fees to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation or the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation despite the sanctions imposed on those entities. General License 13B, which replaces GL 13A (see 2205250054), extends the authorization through 12:01 a.m. EST on Dec. 7, 2022. The 13A license was scheduled to expire Sept. 30.
The U.K. amended one entry and corrected another under its Russian sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a Sept. 6 notice. The entry for Mikhail Razvozhaev, acting "Governor of Sevastopol," was updated to include his full name and alternate spelling of his last name: Mikhail Vladimirovich Razvozhayev. The entry for Pavel Ezoubov, an associate of listed Russian businessman and oligarch Oleg Deripaska, was corrected, with OFSI fixing the spelling of Ezoubov's name in Russian.
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The U.K. amended one entry and corrected another under its Russian sanctions regime, in a Sept. 2 notice. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation amended the entry for MCST JSC, an information, communications and digital technologies company, that is involved in obtaining a benefit for the Russian government. OFSI also corrected the entry for OOO Volga Group, a Russian investment company.
The European Commission on Sept. 1 adopted two reports -- one on the screening of foreign direct investment (FDI) and one on the Export Controls Regulation, it said Sept. 2. The commission said it analyzed over 400 FDIs into the EU in 2021 to ensure that none of the money threatened EU countries' security, and found all but two EU member states have implemented screening mechanisms or are in the process of putting them in place. The commission carried out its FDI screening quickly, with 86% of assessments being completed within 15 calendar days, the commission said.
The Group of Seven nations intends to implement a price cap on Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products, according to a joint statement released Sept. 2 by the G-7 Finance Ministers from their summit in Elmau, Germany. The statement included plans to implement a "comprehensive prohibition of services" that support maritime transportation of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products, based on "a recordkeeping and attestation model" covering relevant contracts. The G-7 said that they were urgently working to finalize and implement the measure in their own jurisdictions through domestic legal processes while building support internationally for the measure.
Russian sanctions and export control evasion attempts are still ongoing. Companies need to remain vigilant across a wide range of areas to minimize their risk of enabling evasion, experts said during a Sept. 1 webinar discussion hosted by the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists (ACSS).
The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security charged PJSC Lukoil, a Russian multinational energy company, with violations of the Export Control Reform Act for the export of a U.S.-manufactured aircraft from Dubai to Russia, according to an Aug. 31 notice. BIS says that Lukoil "effectively owned, controlled, chartered or leased, through a series of shell companies, at least one U.S.-origin aircraft" subject to the Export Administration Regulations and that its export in March violated license requirements imposed in February.
New export restrictions on microchips from NVIDIA, AMD and potentially other chipmakers come amid “a review of existing policies related to China and will potentially seek to employ a variety of legal, regulatory, and, when relevant, enforcement tools to keep advanced technologies out of the wrong hands,” a Bureau of Industry and Security spokesman said when reached for comment Sept. 1.