The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 17 people and seven entities, including Russia-based Evil Corp, for acting as “malicious cyber-enabled actors,” according to a Dec. 5 press release. Evil Corp is a “cybercriminal” organization responsible for the development of Dridex malware, which infects computers to harvest login credentials from “hundreds” of banks in more than 40 countries, leading to more than $100 million in theft, Treasury said. Evil Corp’s actions have caused “millions of dollars of damage” to U.S. and international financial institutions, including their customers, the press release said.
An Iranian businessman was sentenced to 46 months in prison for illegally exporting carbon fiber from the U.S. to Iran, the Justice Department said Nov. 14. Behzad Pourghannad worked with two others between 2008 and 2013 to export the carbon fiber to Iran from third countries using falsified documents and front companies, the agency said.
Australia's parliament announced an inquiry to examine whether the country should adopt sanctions on human rights violations, the parliament said in a Dec. 4 press release. Kevin Andrews, a member of parliament and chair of the government’s Human Rights Subcommittee, said the inquiry will focus on Australia's current sanctions laws, its ability to impose sanctions on foreign actors committing human rights violations, its enforcement methods and a comparison to other jurisdictions to determine whether Australia's sanctions laws can be strengthened.
A Lebanese energy equipment company was fined $368,000 by the Bureau of Industry and Security after it illegally reexported generators to Syria, according to a settlement agreement signed Nov. 27. Ghaddar Machinery allegedly committed 20 violations of the Export Administration Regulations from 2014 to 2016, totaling about $730,000 worth of exports, BIS said. Ghaddar agreed to pay the penalty in five installments through November 2021. Failure to make the payments could result in more penalties, according to the settlement agreement, including a two-year denial of export privileges.
The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security renewed an export denial order for Mahan Airways because the airline continues to violate the order and the Export Administration Regulations, BIS said in a notice. The Iranian airline has been on the banned list since 2008, and the notice renewed the ban for 180 days, BIS said. Since the order was last renewed June 5 (see 1906060054), the U.S. has discovered that the airline is now operating a U.S.-origin Boeing 747 between Iranian airports in Tehran, Kish Island and Mashhad. The aircraft “appears to be” one of three planes Mahan illegally acquired through Blue Airways of Armenia and United Kingdom-based Balli Group, BIS said. In addition, Mahan was involved in the illegal export of a U.S.-origin atomic absorption spectrometer from the U.S. to Iran via the United Arab Emirates in November. The spectrometer is subject to the EAR, and the export violated the terms of Mahan’s denial order, BIS said.
Apple was fined about $465,000 for violations of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations after it hosted, sold and “facilitated the transfer” of software applications and content belonging to a sanctioned company, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a Nov. 25 notice. Apple allegedly dealt in “the property and interests” of SIS d.o.o., a Slovenian software company added to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List in 2015.
Export Compliance Daily is providing this recap of sanctions and export controls enforcement over the past year. Intended to assist export compliance professionals, lawyers and others in the export world stay up to date with current enforcement trends, this guide includes summaries of prominent enforcement actions by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Controls, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, and the Justice Department since Export Compliance Daily began publishing in March 2019.
In the Dec. 3-4 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices as of Dec. 4 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
Japan’s minister of Economy, Trade and Industry urged World Trade Organization members to find a solution before the dispute settlement body ceases to function Dec. 10, according to an unofficial translation of a Dec. 3 press conference. The minister called the body “one of the pillars … [of] the multilateral free trade system.”