Companies seeking to implement global export compliance procedures should be careful to not base their compliance program on only U.S. regulations, especially as more countries introduce export control regimes, industry officials said. New export control regimes in the European Union (see 2105100013), the Philippines and other regions could create compliance challenges and add to resource constraints for global companies if not properly managed, they said.
China raised export tariffs on certain steel products and canceled export tax rebates for others in a bid to control domestic supply, the country's finance ministry said. The measures, which took effect Aug. 1, will raise export tariffs on ferrochrome from 20% to 40% and tariffs on pig iron from 15% to 20% while eliminating export rebates on 23 types of steel products, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, reported July 29. Those 23 steel products include “flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel,” “natural Seamless casing and pipe for gas,” “plated or zinc-coated ordinary steel sheet” and more, a finance ministry document said, according to an unofficial translation.
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Strait Shipbrokers and its managing director, Murtuza Mustafa Munir Basrai, filed a complaint July 19 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging its Specially Designated Nationals listing (see 2101050012). The Trump administration made the designation after concluding the company helped with the transport of petroleum from Iran. Straight Shipbroker countered, claiming it's not required to check the origin of its cargo in its role as a broker and that the designation was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and its Fifth Amendment rights to due process (Strait Shipbrokers Pte. Ltd. et al. v. Blinken et al., D.C. Cir. #21-01946).
Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian national living in Montreal, was indicted by a grand jury July 30 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for illegally exporting laboratory equipment from the U.S. to Iran, the Department of Justice said. Kafrani co-owned Prolife Global, based in Canada, where he sought to purchase spectrometry equipment to ultimately ship to Iran, DOJ alleged. After failing to get one U.S. company to ship the equipment to Montreal, Kafrani found a second American company that sent the merchandise to Canada, DOJ said. Kafrani then sent the equipment to the United Arab Emirates, then reexported it to Iran, it said.
Dali Bagrou and his company World Mining and Oil Supply pleaded guilty on Aug. 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to violating the Export Control Reform Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said in a press release. The scheme started when a Russian state-owned enterprise began working with Oleg Vladislavovich Nikitin, general director of Russia-based energy company KS Engineering, to buy a power turbine from a U.S.-based manufacturer for around $17.3 million, the release said.
The World Bank recently published a new Global Suspension & Debarment Directory, detailing how 23 governments and jurisdictions use exclusion frameworks to penalize suppliers from procurement eligibility based on fraud, corruption, sanctions breaches or other violations of that country’s laws. The directory includes sections on the U.S., China, Canada, Germany, Australia and others.
The European Union added eight more names to its Nicaraguan sanctions regime Aug. 2, bringing the total number of sanctions individuals to 14. The eight, including Vice President Rosario Murillo, were added for undermining democracy or the rule of law. "The political situation in Nicaragua has further deteriorated in recent months," a European Council news release said. "The political use of the judicial system, the exclusion of candidates from the elections and the arbitrary delisting of opposition parties are contrary to basic democratic principles and constitute a serious violation of the rights of the Nicaraguan people. These actions further undermine the credibility of an electoral process, already hampered by an electoral reform that fell short of the recommendations of the OAS and EU Electoral Observation Missions." The other seven listed individuals are Gustavo Porras Cortes, Juan Valle Valle, Ana Guido Ochoa, Fidel Dominguez Alvarez, Alba Ramos Vanegas, Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo and Bayardo Arce Castano. The sanctions amount to an asset freeze and a travel ban.
The European Council removed the former deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Sayed Shamsuddin Borborudi, from its Iran sanctions list and Libyan Gen. Khaled Tohami from its Libyan sanctions regime July 29. The council delisted both individuals following judgments from the European Union General Court to delete the listings.
A rise in U.S. secondary sanctions is increasingly leading to issues in Europe about how companies perform global sanctions compliance while simultaneously avoiding violating the European Union’s blocking regulations, trade lawyers said. Until the U.S. changes its sanctions approach -- which is possible under the Biden administration -- those disputes are expected to continue rising, the lawyers said.