A $90 million yacht owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg was seized by Spanish law enforcement at the behest of the U.S., DOJ announced April 4. The 255-foot luxury yacht, the Tango, was subject to forfeiture following the issuance of a seizure warrant filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The warrant alleged that the yacht was subject to forfeiture based on violations of U.S. bank fraud, money laundering and sanctions laws, DOJ said.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, and seven other Republicans, have introduced a bill that would require the administration "respond to a cyberattack either with sanctions or a classified/unclassified report for Congress to explain why they are not acting to create more accountability," Pfluger said in a press release announcing the introduction March 30.
Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., and Rep Susan Wild, D-Pa., introduced a bill that would establish congressional oversight of some U.S. sanctions on Russia. No text has been released yet, and Meuser's office didn't respond to a request for the text by press time.
The U.K. amended one entry under its Russia sanctions regime, altering the listing information for Andrey Anatolyevich Turchak. In another notice, the U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation amended two entries under its ISIL (Da'esh) and al-Qaida sanctions regime. OFSI updated the listing information for Emraan Ali and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan (ISIL-K).
After the Bureau of Industry and Security added 120 entities to its Entity List last week for supporting the Russian and Belarusian militaries (see 2204010080), senior BIS official Thea Kendler said the U.S. won’t “hesitate” to impose more export restrictions.
New allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine are expected to trigger another set of U.S. and EU sanctions, with some top European officials calling for energy embargoes and harsher financial restrictions. Although the European Commission was already expected to consider expanding some of its existing sanctions this week, the bloc may take more significant steps after images surfaced over the weekend of potential war crimes committed by Russia's military, including in Bucha, Ukraine.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation released a General License permitting until May 15 the winding down of positions involving sanctioned Russian bank Sovcomflot and its subsidiaries.
The Senate confirmed Alan Estevez to be the next undersecretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security March 31, marking the end of a monthslong nomination process and giving BIS its first confirmed leader in more than five years (see 2104070026 and 2107130004). Estevez will take over BIS at a critical time for the agency, which in recent weeks has been tasked with crafting and implementing hundreds of pages of new export control regulations to penalize Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Apple is considering incorporating chips made by Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Bloomberg reported March 30, a Chinese state-owned company that some lawmakers say should be placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity list. Apple is exploring placing YMTC memory chips into its iPhones after one of its key suppliers in Japan, Kioxia Holdings Corp., “lost a batch of output to contamination” in February, the report said. Apple is “keen to diversify its network and offset the risk of further disruption from the pandemic and shipping snarls,” the report said, and is now testing sample NAND flash memory chips made by YMTC.
A new bill introduced in the House would require the administration to study how digital currencies could help Russia evade U.S. sanctions. The legislation, introduced March 31 by Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also would create a new State Department officer to oversee sanctions evasion efforts involving digital currency.