The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on March 2 completed its review of a final Bureau of Industry and Security rule that will implement sanctions and export restrictions against Myanmar (see 2102170005). OIRA received the rule Feb. 23 (see 2102240007).
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued guidance March 2 on how it will implement the increased export restrictions against Russia for the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny (see 2103020067). DDTC said it will amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to add Russia to the list of countries subject to a policy of denial for defense exports and services. That restriction will include certain exceptions, including a case-by-case review for exports that support “government space cooperation” and a six-month exception for exports that support “commercial space launches,” which will also be subject to a case-by-case review. DDTC said other exemptions will be provided for exports to Russia “when in furtherance of government space cooperation.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security outlined its licensing policy for the 14 additions to the Entity List announced earlier this week (see 2103020067) and made several corrections to the list, a final rule released March 2 said. BIS will impose a license requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations that are destined to the 14 Russian, German and Swiss entities, the rule said. The license requirement will also apply if any of the entities acts as a “purchaser, intermediate consignee, ultimate consignee, or end-user,” BIS added, and no license exceptions will be available. All exports and reexports that now require a license as a result of the Entity List additions but were aboard a carrier to a port as of March 4 may proceed to their destinations under the previous eligibility, BIS said.
The U.S. needs to modernize its approach to export controls and expand disclosure requirements for foreign investment screening to maintain its technology dominance over China, a U.S. national security commission said in a report this week. The commission called current U.S. export controls outdated, urged the Commerce Department to more quickly control emerging and foundational technologies, and said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. should review a broader set of transactions to protect sensitive technologies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently expanded its commodity classification request process to include the Department of Defense, which is expected to slightly increase processing times and potentially require more thorough submissions of classification requests, an agency official said. The Defense Department began participating in the process late last year as part of BIS’s implementation of the 2018 Export Control Reform Act, said John Varesi, an official in BIS’s Sensors and Aviation Division. ECRA “required that there would be an interagency effort in terms of the commodity classifications,” Varesi said during a March 2 Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “This is basically the implementation of that requirement.”
The European Union added four Russian individuals to its sanctions list for serious human rights violations, including the arbitrary arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the crackdown on the subsequent protests, the European Council announced in a March 2 press release. The sanctioned individuals are Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation; Igor Krasnov, the Prosecutor-General; Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard; and Alexander Kalashnikov, head of the Federal Prison Service. The restrictive measures consist of a travel ban and asset freeze, and people and entities in the EU are forbidden from making funds available to the listed individuals. These sanctions mark the first use of the new EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, established on Dec. 7, 2020, that permits the EU to use sanctions for human-rights related purposes including genocide, slavery, arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and other violations.
The United Nations Security Council on Feb. 26 issued three new sanctions for terrorism activity in Somalia. The UNSC designated Abukar Ali Adan, deputy leader of the terrorist group al-Shabaab; Maalim Ayman, founder and leader of Jaysh Ayman, a unit of al-Shabaab; and Mahad Karate, who “played a key role” in Amniyat, the intelligence wing of al-Shabaab.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Mansur Al-Sa’adi and Ahmad ’Ali Ahsan al-Hamzi, who are responsible for organizing attacks by Houthi forces against Yemeni civilians, bordering nations and commercial ships, OFAC said March 2. OFAC said Al-Sa’adi is chief of staff for the Houthi Naval Forces and has helped smuggle Iranian weapons into Yemen. Al-Hamzi is the commander of Yemen’s Houthi-aligned Yemeni Air Force and Air Defense Forces and has also “acquired” Iranian weapons to use in Yemen.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for Feb. 22-26 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. sanctioned a host of Russian officials and agencies, will add 14 entities to the Entity List and will increase restrictions on exports of military-related goods to Russia in response to the poisoning and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The increased export controls will also remove certain license exceptions for shipments to Russia and will impose stricter license review policies for certain sensitive goods, the State Department said March 2.