Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said Dec. 2 that his bill to expand sanctions on Syria's Bashar Assad regime seems to have stalled in Congress but that he hopes to get it enacted into law next year if not this month.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Dec. 3 criticized the Biden administration’s new export controls on advanced computing chips and chipmaking equipment, saying they leave too many loopholes that Chinese companies can exploit to obtain American technology and modernize China’s military. McCaul said he plans to work with the incoming Trump administration to close those loopholes. McCaul made his comments a day after the Bureau of Industry and Security unveiled the new restrictions (see 2412020016).
The U.K. sanctioned Northern Ireland resident Brian Sheridan under suspicions that he was providing financial assistance to members of the New Irish Republican Army, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced. The designation was made under the domestic counterterrorism sanctions regime. U.K. Economic Secretary to the Treasury Tulip Siddiq said the listing is the "first use of the Treasury-led domestic counter terrorism financial sanctions regime targeting Northern Ireland related terrorism."
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned 35 vessels and ship management firms involved in transporting Iranian petroleum to foreign markets, which OFAC said provides the country’s government with money to develop weapons and fund terrorism. The designations target a “sprawling network” of tankers that carry the flags of the Marshall Islands, Guyana, the Cook Islands, Liberia, Honduras, Panama and more, as well as their managers based in the United Arab Emirates, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Seychelles and elsewhere.
One day after the U.S. published a new set of semiconductor-related export controls aimed at China (see 2412020016), Beijing announced a ban on certain key critical minerals and other dual-use items being shipped to the U.S. for military uses.
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Companies have experienced a loss of business and other negative financial effects as a result of the Bureau of Industry and Security’s October 2022 and October 2023 rules restricting exports of advanced computing chips and chipmaking equipment (see 2310170055), the Government Accountability Office said in a new report released Dec. 2.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined Berlin-based Aiotec GmbH $14.55 million to settle allegations that it violated sanctions against Iran, OFAC said in a Dec. 3 enforcement notice. OFAC said the company, which sources industrial equipment for the energy sector, falsified documents and took other steps to hide that its purchase of an Australian industrial plant from a U.S. reseller would be moved to Iran.
The latest U.S. semiconductor-related export restrictions represent a strengthening of controls on China along with a “massive” expansion of foreign direct product rule restrictions, but they also include some head-scratching loopholes that chip firms will exploit, semiconductor policy researchers said this week.
Rachel Fredman Lyngaas is leaving her role as the Treasury Department’s chief sanctions economist to become a senior policy researcher at Rand, a think tank and research organization, she announced on LinkedIn. She announced her departure from Treasury last month (see 2411270005).