The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced changes to its sanctions on Yemen and the Central African Republic: an amendment to the entry for Sultan Saleh Aida Aida Zabin, the director of Yemen's Criminal Investigation Department, in an April 6 notice; and removal of the Bureau D'Achat de Diamant en Centrafrique/Kardiam of the Central African Republic from the sanctions list, meaning it is no longer subject to an asset freeze, in a separate April 6 notice.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is seeking comments on the agency’s information collection requirements in its Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations, OFAC said in a notice released April 7. The information collection covers reports required by OFAC that are reviewed by the Department of the Treasury and may be used for compliance, civil penalty and enforcement purposes by the agency. Comments are due June 7.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 7 added four people and two entities to its Specially Designated Nationals List. The designated entries have addresses in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, including the Abid Ali Khan Transnational Criminal Organization. OFAC didn’t provide more information on the designations, and an agency spokesperson didn’t comment.
The Bureau of Industry and Security's decision to eliminate certain reporting requirements for encryption items (see 2103260019) should exempt a greater number of companies from filing mandatory declarations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., DLA Piper said in an April 6 post.
Following the Chinese government's decision to place retaliatory sanctions on Canadian and British officials and entities for their criticism of the alleged human rights abuses in the country's Xinjiang region, lawyers in both countries are expressing concern over the rising tensions between the two sides and noticing greater business concern over maintaining Chinese market access. Neil Williams and Thomas Cattee, white collar crime lawyers at Gherson Solicitors in the United Kingdom, said the Chinese sanctions are merely symbolic without any real underlying economic effect but that sanctioned individuals in the U.K. have deferred to Chinese demands.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo suggested her agency has no plans to remove Huawei from the Entity List and said she will aggressively use trade tools to compete with China. But she also said she will prioritize efforts to invest in U.S. technology industries over imposing more export restrictions. “My broad view is what we do on offense is more important than what we do on defense,” Raimondo told reporters April 7. “To compete in the long run with China, we need to rebuild America in all of the ways we're talking about.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security added seven Chinese “supercomputing” entities to the Entity List for procuring U.S.-origin items in a way that harms U.S. national security and supports China’s military, BIS said in a final rule that takes effect today. The rule imposes a license requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations, and BIS will impose a license review policy of presumption of denial. No license exceptions will be available.
Export Compliance Costs, Awareness Likely to Increase for Aircraft Transactions Following Indictment
Export compliance costs and awareness will likely rise for aircraft transactions due to increased compliance by aircraft sellers following the seizure of 12 aircraft on export violation charges, Vedder Price's David Hernandez said. In an April 5 report, Hernandez looked at the impacts of the indictments of eight individuals charged with drug trafficking and export violation conspiracies, including the owner of Aircraft Guaranty Corporation (see 2103010028). The indictments arose from a series of investigations into the customs export practices of U.S.-based trust companies serving as trustees in aircraft ownership trusts with non-U.S. citizens, called Non-Citizen Trusts.
The president of a Long Island, New York-based cosmetics company, Michael Rose, was arrested for allegedly selling more than $350,000 in cosmetic goods to an Iranian importer in violation of U.S. sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced in an April 6 news release. Between 2015 and 2018, Rose, of Ridgefield, Connecticut, allegedly exported the goods to an Iranian importer to fulfill a contract the two parties signed, making the importer the sole distributor of Rose's cosmetics in Iran. The goods skirted U.S. sanctions via front companies that had Rose sending his cosmetics to the United Arab Emirates. Rose also allegedly filed false and misleading information on Commerce Department Shipper's Export Declaration forms, declaring that the “ultimate consignee” for the goods was the UAE and not Iran.
The United Nations Security Council removed a diamond trading company based in the Central African Republic from its sanctions list, it said April 5. The move deletes the entry for Bureau D’achat de Diamant en Centrafrique/Kardiam.