The U.S. and more than 30 other countries are meeting virtually this week to discuss how to better counter and disrupt ransomware attacks, including through sanctions, the White House said Oct. 13. The meetings come less than a month after the U.S. sanctioned SUEX, a large virtual currency exchange, for helping to facilitate transactions related to illegal ransomware attacks (see 2109210031). The White House said the Treasury Department “will continue to disrupt and hold accountable these ransomware actors and their money laundering networks,” and the meetings this week could be a forum for discussing multilateral actions.
The European Union sanctioned an additional eight individuals for “actively supporting actions and implementing policies that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the European Council said Oct. 11. These eight individuals include judges and prosecutors responsible for enforcing Russian law in Crimea and Sevastopol, the council said. The total number of sanctioned parties is 185 individuals and 48 entities.
Ukraine imposed sanctions on 95 individuals and four entities relating to the Russian elections in occupied territories of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an Oct. 5 decree, according to an unofficial translation. The listings include candidates for the Russia State Duma party and members of the election commissions. Seven operatives of the Russian Federal Security Service allegedly responsible for poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny were also designated, according to the first annex to the decree: Alexey Alexandrov, Vladimir Panyaev, Ivan Vladimirovich Osipov, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bogdanov, Kirill Vasilyev, Stanislav Valentinovich Makshakov and Alexei Semenovich Sedov. The U.S. and the United Kingdom sanctioned the seven in August (see 2108200017).
The U.S. and 44 other countries submitted questions this week to Russia regarding the poisoning of Russian political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which has spurred multiple rounds of U.S. sanctions and trade restrictions targeting Russia. The queries, submitted at the Oct. 5 meeting for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Executive Council, regard whether Russia has fallen out of compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention’s requirements. The U.S. has designated various Russian entities and people related to the poisoning and imposed more export restrictions on national security-controlled goods and technology (see 2103170022 and 2108230065). Russia has 10 days to respond.
The Senate Banking Committee this week approved the nominations for two senior Bureau of Industry and Security officials but reached a tie vote on two other nominees slated to oversee the Treasury Department’s sanctions work.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for Sept. 27-Oct. 1 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he wasn’t satisfied after the committee’s closed briefing with the Biden administration about the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline last week, adding that the administration “continues its refusal to follow the law.” Senate Republicans have criticized the administration for not imposing more sanctions on the pipeline, arguing that sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act are mandatory (see 2109150017).
Oleg Nikitin, Russian national and owner of St. Petersburg-based energy company KS Engineering, was sentenced to federal prison for scheming to evade U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said. Nikitin was sentenced to 28 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations. Nikitin was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and is subject to deportation when his sentence ends. KSE, along with Italian company GVA International Oil and Gas Services, will serve five years' probation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined two Texas companies -- both subsidiaries of Netherlands-based oilfield services company ​Schlumberger Ltd. -- for violating U.S. sanctions against Russia and Sudan, OFAC said Sept. 27. The agency fined oil and gas service provider Cameron International Corp. more than $1.4 million for illegally providing services for a Russian Arctic offshore oil project and fined gas product provider Schlumberger Rod Lift, Inc. $160,000 for helping to illegally facilitate shipments to Sudan. OFAC said neither company voluntarily self-disclosed its violations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Texas semiconductor component manufacturer nearly $500,000 for illegally exporting controlled wafers to Russia via Bulgaria (see 2012210013), the agency said in a Sept. 28 order. The company, Silicon Space Technology Corporation, which began doing business as Vorago Technologies in 2015, worked with a Russian engineering firm to export “rad-hard 16MB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafers,” which were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations for spacecraft and related components.