The State Department is expecting to see a large uptick by the end of the year in the number of authorized users under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations' new AUKUS exemption, a senior agency official said.
The U.S. must continue to coordinate with allies on export controls, especially around Russia-related trade restrictions and curbs on advanced semiconductors and semiconductor tools destined to China, the Bureau of Industry and Security's Thea Kendler said during her final international outreach event as a Biden administration official.
Christopher Stagg, an export controls lawyer and former senior official with the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, has joined Holland & Knight as a partner, the law firm announced. Stagg previously ran his own firm, Stagg PLLC.
Chinese trade associations are urging domestic firms to be careful when buying U.S. semiconductors and semiconductor equipment in light of the new set of export controls released by the Bureau of Industry and Security this week (see 2412020016).
DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint Dec. 2 in the U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York, seeking the proceeds from the sale of a California music studio that are allegedly beneficially owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The complaint alleges that the proceeds, totaling $3.4 million, "are the proceeds of sanctions violations."
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.