The State Department rescinded its statutory debarment of Dennis Haag after receiving a reinstatement request, the agency said in a notice released Sept. 30. The agency debarred Haag in 2018 for violating the Arms Export Control Act but determined the debarment should no longer apply after conducting a “thorough review of the circumstances surrounding his conviction.” The State Department determined that Haag has taken “appropriate steps to address the causes of the violations sufficient to warrant rescission of his statutory debarment.”
Oleg Nikitin, Russian national and owner of St. Petersburg-based energy company KS Engineering, was sentenced to federal prison for scheming to evade U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said. Nikitin was sentenced to 28 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Export Control Reform Act and the Export Administration Regulations. Nikitin was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and is subject to deportation when his sentence ends. KSE, along with Italian company GVA International Oil and Gas Services, will serve five years' probation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., and 10 other House Republicans introduced a bill Sept. 28 that requires the administration to impose sanctions on foreign buyers of rare earth minerals -- but the bill explicitly exempts sanctions on the import of those minerals into the U.S. “The Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has given the Taliban control of one of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals in the world, which jeopardizes our national security,” Steube said. “Banning the Taliban and China from profiting off of rare earth minerals is commonsense." He said the bill is designed to prevent Chinese firms from buying rare earths and then processing them and selling them to U.S. buyers.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Sept. 30 issued a new frequently asked question to clarify certain sanctions exemptions related to Iran’s Imam Reza Holy Shrine. While the State Department has urged people not to travel to Iran, OFAC will exempt transactions related to “religious pilgrimages” by U.S. people to the shrine and the “acquisition of goods or services for personal use while traveling.” The agency also exempts certain donations to the shrine, including clothing, food, medicine and other humanitarian goods that are “intended to be used to alleviate human suffering.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security has faced challenges applying some of its new export control rules during the last year, including its military end-use and end-user regulations and broader semiconductor-related policies toward China, a senior BIS official said. Matt Borman, BIS’s deputy assistant secretary for export administration, said he recognizes the rules may also be causing compliance challenges for industry, and the agency is considering more guidance.
The United Kingdom's navy captured evidence of ships violating United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the East China Sea, the Defense Ministry said. HMS Richmond conducted operations in the East China Sea, finding evidence that ships provided fuel or refined petroleum products to North Korea, in violation of the sanctions established in 2017. HMS Richmond detached from the U.K. Carrier Strike Group deployed in the Indo-Pacific. The operations mark the first time since 2019 that a Royal Navy ship has supported U.N. sanctions monitoring and enforcement activity, the ministry said.
The U.S. and Qatar announced joint sanctions against a “major” Hezbollah financial network based in the Arabian Peninsula, which includes seven people and one entity, the Treasury Department said Sept. 29. Treasury designated Ali Reda Hassan al-Banai, Ali Reda al-Qassabi Lari, Abd al-Muayyid al-Banai, Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Nabi Shams, Yahya Muhammad al-Abd-al-Muhsin, Majdi Fa’iz al-Ustadz and Sulaiman al-Banai as Specially Designated Global Terrorists for supporting Hezbollah and terrorism. The agency also sanctioned Qatar-based Aldar Properties, which is controlled by Sulaiman al-Banai.
The U.S. partnered with Singapore and Japan to host a virtual trade industry outreach seminar this week, where they discussed emerging technology exports, sanctions compliance and more, the Bureau of Industry and Security said. The ninth annual Joint Industry Outreach seminar, which featured officials from the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia, included discussions on the intersection of export controls and sanctions, controlling emerging technologies, cyber-threats to export-controlled data, intangible transfers of technology and intellectual property, export controls for academic and research environments, and tools for internal compliance planning, BIS said. The agency said the seminar, held Sept. 28-29, allowed governments and industry to share best practices and review recent export control updates.
The State Department extended a September 2020 rule that temporarily suspended restrictions on certain defense exports to Cyprus because it has proven to be “in the national security interest” of the U.S., the agency said in a notice released Sept. 29. The rule (see 2009020045) amended the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to relax restrictions surrounding exports of nonlethal defense goods and services to Cyprus, and also eased restrictions on reexports, retransfers and temporary imports. The agency had been considering extending the rule for several months and was monitoring whether it was helping U.S. exporters (see 2010220049). The extended rule, effective Sept. 30, will now last through Sept. 30, 2022.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week completed an interagency review for a final rule that would expand export controls on certain biological equipment software. The rule, received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Sept. 13 (see 2109140011) and completed Sept. 28, would control software “for the operation of automated nucleic acid assemblers and synthesizers” that are “capable of designing and building functional genetic elements from digital sequence data.”