The U.N. Security Council on Nov. 8 sanctioned two people connected to the Rapid Support Forces, a militant group in Sudan that has been accused of human rights violations. The designations target Abdel Rahman Juma Barkalla, a major general and West Darfur commander of the RSF, and Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, also a senior official with the RSF. The U.S. sanctioned Barkalla this week and included several alternate spellings for his name (see 2411120006)
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a final rule this week to revise its sanctions regulations for Myanmar, releasing a “more comprehensive set of regulations” with more guidance and definitions. The rule, effective Nov. 13, also includes general licenses and “other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public,” OFAC said. The new regulations replace the rules that were published in “abbreviated form” in 2021.
The EU will use sanctions to penalize third countries helping Russia fight its war against Ukraine, including those that deliver weapons or other lethal aid to Moscow, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, warned this week.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah for being the West Darfur commander of the Rapid Support Forces, a Sudanese militant group warring with the Sudanese Armed Forces. OFAC said he played a “key role” in the kidnapping and killing of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abbakar and other human rights violations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week updated its “Don’t Let This Happen To You” guidance with new summaries and case examples of past export control investigations. The guidance now includes new case summaries of violations involving a Russia-related procurement network; a criminal case where export-controlled items were smuggled outside the U.S. and used in an assassination plot; a penalty against a semiconductor wafer manufacturing company for shipments to a party on the Entity List; violations of BIS antiboycott regulations; and more. “Exporters are encouraged to review the publication, which provides useful illustrations of the type of conduct that gets companies and universities in trouble,” BIS said.
The Commerce Department sent a letter to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ordering it to stop shipments of advanced semiconductors to certain Chinese customers, including 7 nanometer chips or others of “more advanced designs,” Reuters reported Nov. 9. The letter specifically orders TSMC to stop shipments, beginning Nov. 11, destined for Chinese customers of chips that power artificial intelligence accelerator and graphics processing units, the report said.
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European nations are seeing a sharp uptick in export control and sanctions enforcement this year, raising risks for companies doing business in the EU, said Mark Handley, a lawyer with Duane Morris.
The U.K.’s Export Control Joint Unit last week published a list of export-controlled goods, software and technology for which the exporter still must use SPIRE, the country’s outgoing licensing system, to apply for a license. The country plans to retire SPIRE, or the Shared Primary Information Resource Environment, and replace it with its new digital export licensing system, Licensing for International Trade (LITE), in the coming months (see 2409190037), but applications for certain sensitive items still must go through SPIRE (see 2409250022). The list, included in a new table of "control list entries," includes certain genetically modified organisms, items related to capital punishment and torture, certain radioactive items, and more.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York this month denied a request from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to help the company obtain access to certain discovery documents that are restricted by the Bureau of Industry and Security. Judge Cheryl Pollak said that while DOJ marked hundreds of thousands of documents at a lower level of classification than BIS, which would give Huawei greater access to the records, the documents are "still subject to further review by BIS" (United States v. Huawei Technologies, E.D.N.Y. # 18-00457).