President Donald Trump will nominate Jessie Liu to be undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, a key sanctions role within the Treasury Department, the White House said Dec. 10. Liu is the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and previously served as deputy general counsel for Treasury and in the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The position was previously held by Sigal Mandelker, who resigned in October (see 1910020061).
U.S. companies are encountering issues when trying to return faulty products to parties on the Entity List, members said during a Dec. 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The problem occurs after companies legally import goods -- which later turn out to be defective -- from an Entity List party, the members said. The goods are not able to be easily exported for return, they said.
In the Dec. 10 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The European Union is working on a sanctions regime to target human rights violations, Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said Dec. 9. Borrell said the EU is launching “preparatory work” for the regime at the request of “several” EU member states, adding that the regime will be the “EU equivalent” of U.S. Global Magnitsky Act sanctions. “This will be a tangible step reaffirming the European Union’s global lead on human rights,” he said.
The European Union maintained some sanctions and lifted certain sanctions from officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the EU Council said Dec. 9. The move includes lifting sanctions on two people on the DRC sanctions list: Roger Kibelisa and Lambert Mende, according to a Dec. 9 post on the European Sanctions blog.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 18 people and six entities under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for human rights violations, Treasury said in a Dec. 10 press release. The people are located in Burma, Pakistan, Libya, Slovakia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, and the six entities are all located in Slovakia.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 2-6 in case you missed them.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security's upcoming set of proposed rules on emerging technologies may not be published until early next year, another sign of the delay that has plagued the rules since Commerce first announced them more than a year ago. Commerce has three emerging technology rule proposals in “various stages of clearance,” Hillary Hess, director of the BIS Regulatory Policy Division, said during a Dec. 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The agency hopes to publish one proposal before the end of the year, Hess said, but urged committee members to take any prediction with “at least a handful of salt.”
The Commerce Department is considering a host of expanded restrictions on foreign shipments to Huawei containing U.S. technology, said Rich Ashooh, Commerce’s assistant secretary for export administration. The agency is discussing expanding the Direct Product Rule -- which subjects certain foreign-made products containing U.S. technology to U.S. regulations -- and a broadened de minimis rule, Ashooh said during a Dec. 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Ashooh’s comments confirmed details in a Nov. 29 Reuters report that said the U.S. was discussing ways to restrict more foreign exports to Huawei (see 1912040014).
The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued guidance Dec. 6 on best practices for internal compliance programs involving strategic goods, technologies and sanctions. The 16-page guidance, produced in collaboration with the country’s Central Office for Import and Export, sets out responsibilities for businesses and exporters involved in the strategic technology sector. It contains practices for export screening procedures, verifying end-users and end uses, and performing audits and training. The guidance also contains European Union regulations on exporting controlled technology, including those related to cyber surveillance, human rights abuses, and “torture goods.”