Swedbank may have committed 586 violations of U.S. sanctions and self-disclosed the violations to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the bank said March 11. The bank said the violations involved about $4.8 million worth of transactions between 2014 and 2019 and include payments with its subsidiaries in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. More than 500 of the violations constituted “salary payments” and other payments associated with the operation of a vessel and operator located in Crimea that used Swedbank in the Baltics.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security canceled its annual export control conference set to be held in Los Angeles in April due to coronavirus concerns, BIS said March 12. BIS said it made the decision “out of an abundance of caution.” The Export Control Forum, which was scheduled for April 1-2, will instead be offered as a “remote access program in the near future” and will provide some of the information officials “intended to present” at the conference, the agency said. BIS has not yet determined the date of that program. BIS also said the event’s co-sponsor, the District Export Council of Southern California, will return registration fees.
The Census Bureau is reaching out to companies that conduct value-added for re-exports in an effort to learn more about the process, Kiesha Downs, chief of the Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division’s regulations branch, said during a March 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Census has reached out to two companies so far, Downs said, but encourages other re-exporters to contact the agency.
Japan and South Korea held an export control policy dialogue March 10 (see 2002210021) to discuss controls on sensitive technologies and concerns surrounding a trade dispute stemming from last year (see 1907010020), Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said, according to an unofficial translation. Japan said it pushed for “improved” measures surrounding “trade control and technology transfer management in both countries.” The two sides will continue meeting to try to resolve their dispute, discuss “country categories, conventional weapon catch-all systems” and more, Japan said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two Zimbabwean government officials for human rights violations, Treasury said in a March 11 news release. Anselem Sanyatwe, former commander of the Zimbabwean National Army’s Presidential Guard Brigade, and Owen Ncube, the country’s minister of national security, committed violations against people protesting the country’s “flawed elections” and supporters of a Zimbabwean opposition group. OFAC also removed sanctions against Ray Kaukonde, Shuvai Ben Mahofa, Sithokozile Mathuthu and Naison Ndlovu, who were previously designated under Zimbabwe sanctions.
The timeline for the release of CBP’s electronic export manifest system remains unclear despite hopes on the part of some officials that the system would be launched last year (see 1910180061). “I believe it’ll be a little bit down the road,” Kiesha Downs, chief of the Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division’s regulations branch, said during a March 10 Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “Everybody knows how long it takes to go through the regulatory process.”
Italy will transfer responsibilities for dual-use export license requests and export control policies from its Ministry of Economic Development to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs Munitions Licensing Unit (UAMA) after June 30, according to a March 9 post from the European Union Sanctions blog. Beginning July 1, export control responsibilities will “be divided between the ministries” or “transfer entirely to UAMA,” the post said.
The Royal United Services Institute issued a March 5 report stating that a fleet of North Korean cargo ships is delivering coal to China in violation of international sanctions. RUSI called the operation a “large-scale, coordinated effort” to evade United Nations Sanctions, which includes North Korean ships transmitting “fake details” over their Automatic Identification System transponders when visiting Chinese waters. While RUSI says evidence of North Korea shipping coal to China first surfaced in a 2019 UN report, the institute said its findings confirm the UN information despite denials at the time from China. “Not only do North Korean vessels continue to visit this specific region,” RUSI said, “but they are doing so in unprecedented numbers.”
Continued U.S. restrictions on exports of technology to Chinese companies could have “profound negative repercussions” for the U.S. semiconductor industry, significantly depleting their global competitive standing, according to a March 9 report from the Boston Consulting Group. If current export control trends continue or escalate, leading to a further decoupling between U.S. and China, U.S. semiconductor companies could lose “8 percentage points of global share and 16% of their revenues,” the report said. And if the U.S. bans semiconductor companies from selling to Chinese customers, U.S. companies would lose nearly 40 percent of their revenues, the report said, leading to “severe” cuts in research and development and losses of thousands of jobs.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 2-6 in case you missed them.