The Bureau of Industry and Security is working on a proposed rule that would create a formal license amendment process, which could allow applicants to revise certain license information rather than start over with a replacement application, said Tim Mooney, an official in BIS’s regulatory policy division. BIS drafted a version of the proposed rule toward the end of the Obama administration, Mooney said, but the idea was nixed after some interagency disagreements about the rule’s scope.
The United Kingdom is making changes to the structure and format of the U.K. Sanctions List, with the alterations set to take effect in February 2022, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said. OFSI issued a guidance to users of the list to anticipate the changes. The amendments include data standardization to drop duplications, unnecessary punctuation and improve consistency; and new fields designed to increase the detail and structure of the data. Some of these new fields include "name type" that shows whether a name is a primary name, primary name variation or alias; "passport additional information"; and "National Identifier additional information," which will describe the source of a number that is listed in a national identity card, for instance. The format changes also include alterations to some field names to make their purpose clearer. An example of this change includes changing the "Individual, Entity, Ship - Vessel" field to "Ship" to align with the terminology in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018.
Cryptocurrency transactions risk violating sanctions regulations in addition to posing money laundering and terrorist financing risks, Dutch Central Bank De Nederlandsche Bank said in a draft Q&A on complying with sanctions measures for such transactions, according to an unofficial translation. The bank is running a consultation period that is set to close on Dec. 17. The Q&A covers such questions as who falls within the scope of the "relationship" insofar as crypto providers take measures to check whether relationships have been sanctioned, and what measures does a crypto service provider take when transacting with crypto to check whether the individuals or entities involved have been sanctioned. The guidance also discusses good practice for cryptocurrency service providers and risk analysis.
Senate and House lawmakers reached a compromise agreement this week on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which includes a sanctions provision targeting human rights abusers in China. The text of the agreement, released just hours before it passed in the House on Dec. 14, would require the Biden administration to identify and sanction any foreign person, including Chinese government officials, responsible for “serious’ human rights abuses against Muslim minority groups in China's Xinjiang region. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested President Joe Biden will support the bill. "We have been clear that we share Congress' view that action must be taken to hold [China] accountable for human rights abuses, and to address forced labor in Xinjiang," Psaki told reporters Dec. 14. The U.S. has already imposed a range of sanctions and other trade and investment restrictions against Chinese people and entities for human rights violations in Xinjiang, including an investment ban against SenseTime and sanctions against two Xinjiang officials this month (see 2112100034).
The Bureau of Industry and Security is still reviewing export controls on facial recognition software, surveillance-related products and other goods controlled for crime-control reasons after requesting feedback on the potential restrictions in July 2020, said Hillary Hess, BIS’s regulatory policy director. Although no new restrictions have been announced, Hess said new controls for items described in the rule, including crime-control goods that may be used for human rights abuses, are still being considered. “We have been looking at that,” Hess said during a Dec. 14 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “It’s definitely on our plate.” In the 2020 rule, BIS solicited feedback on possibly imposing new licensing requirements for biometric systems for surveillance, non-lethal visual disruption lasers, long-range acoustic devices and other surveillance-related technologies and goods (see 2007160021). In comments, several technology companies warned BIS against imposing overly broad, unilateral export restrictions that could hurt U.S. competitiveness, while a human rights advocacy group and a U.S. lawmaker called for new export restrictions and suggested existing controls should be strengthened (see 2010090044).
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The United Kingdom added four entities to its Myanmar sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a Dec. 12 notice. The new entries are the Directorate for Defence Industries, the Directorate for Defence Procurement, the Myanmar War Veterans Organisation and the Quarter Master General Office. All four entities sit under the Myanmar Ministry of Defence, an entity responsible for the February coup in the Southeast Asian nation and for generally undermining democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar. The four are subject to an assets freeze.
The European Union amended the criteria under its Mali sanctions regime, adding the ability to autonomously impose restrictive measures on individuals and entities culpable for "threatening the peace, security or stability of Mali, or for obstructing the implementation of its political transition," the European Council said. The move allows the EU to impose sanctions, whereas until now it could only put into legislation any sanctions decisions made by the United Nations. The change also follows up on a Foreign Affairs Council agreement that intended to establish a framework for sanctions on Mali in support of the Economic Community of West African States' restrictive measures on Malian transition authorities.
The European Commission removed Jean-Claude Kazembe Musonda from its Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions regime, per a Dec. 10 implementing regulation replacing the list of sanctioned individuals. Failing to appear on the updated list, Musonda -- the former governor of Haut-Katanga province and a leader of the CONAKAT party -- was removed due to his death in July.
The European Union imposed sanctions against the Wagner Group, a "Russia-based unincorporated private military entity," the European Council said in a Dec. 13 press release. Including an asset freeze and travel ban, the restrictive measures apply to the Wagner group itself along with eight individuals and three entities related to the group. The EC declared that the Wagner Group has trained and sent private military operatives to hot spots around the world to "fuel violence, loot natural resources and intimidate civilians in violation of international law." Areas where the Wagner Group have operated include Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and the Sahel region. The sanctions were arranged under four different sanctions regimes: the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime; the sanctions regimes for Libya and Syria; and the regime for undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity, the EC said.