Two Senate Democrats this week joined a growing chorus of lawmakers (see 2102170013 and 2008110016) to urge the Joe Biden administration to increase sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project and prevent it from being completed. Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said they appreciated measures taken so far (see 2101190018) but urged the administration to continue to use “all the tools available to stop the pipeline’s construction” and to continue “using diplomacy” to build European opposition to the project. “This pipeline must be stopped and your leadership is required towards that end,” the senators said in a March 23 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “[P]ublicly available information suggests that further sanctions are warranted at this time.”
The United Nations Security Council revised eight entries on its ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida sanctions list, it said March 23. The changes amend identifying information for terrorist financiers and terrorism group members.
U.S. measures to expand foreign investment screening are having an increasingly chilling impact on Chinese companies’ willingness to invest in the U.S., said Jingyuan Shi, a media and technology lawyer with Simmons & Simmons. As the Biden administration continues to implement its China strategy, including its administration of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., some Chinese technology companies “are adopting a wait-and-see attitude,” especially amid the U.S.-China “trade tension atmosphere,” Shi said during a March 24 webinar hosted by the law firm.
The European Union could remove exceptions to its COVID-19 vaccine export regime, expanding the controls to the rest of the globe, Bloomberg reported a senior EU official as saying. The current EU vaccine export control regime, put in place on Feb. 1, has many large exceptions, including Africa and the Middle East, to make sure that vaccine supply lines are uninterrupted and many poorer countries can receive the shots. However, until orders can be filled that the EU made with vaccine manufacturers, the country exceptions are on the chopping block as are protections to companies such as Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. until they fulfill their contracts, the report said.
A 55-year-old man has been extradited to the U.S. from Malaysia, making him the first North Korean national to be brought to the states to face a criminal charge, the Department of Justice announced in a March 22 news release. Mun Chol Myong, a North Korean businessman, is charged with laundering money through the U.S. financial system to provide luxury items to North Korea. Mun allegedly defrauded U.S. banks for years and violated sanctions on the oppressive North Korean regime in amounts exceeding $1.5 million, according to recently unsealed court documents. He also was allegedly affiliated with the Reconnaissance Geneal Bureau, North Korea's chief intelligence organization. He made his first appearance March 22 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where he had been indicted May 2, 2019, on six counts of money laundering. Mun was arrested in Malaysia May 14, 2019.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill that would impose sanctions on Russian government officials responsible for human rights abuses against their own people. The bill, which was introduced in the House in February and the text released this week, would require President Joe Biden to impose Magnitsky human rights sanctions against Russia for the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the use of other biological weapons. The administration earlier this month sanctioned a host of Russian officials and agencies for Navalny’s poisoning and imprisonment (see 2103020067). The bill also calls for the State Department to “urge” Germany to “withdraw its support” from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project (see 2103180047). The legislation was introduced by Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Joe Wilson, R-S.C., Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and David Cicilline, D-R.I.
The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation published an updated list of all the individuals or entities subject to an asset freeze in the U.K. The sanctions regimes include individuals and entities from 21 countries, and for seven non-state reasons including cybercrimes and relationship to ISIL (Da'esh) and al-Qaida.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for March 15-19 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. should be doing more to restrict Chinese semiconductor companies from buying U.S. equipment, which is strengthening China’s military and ceding U.S. technology leadership, researchers said. Although the U.S. should bolster domestic policies to help the semiconductor industry -- including through supply chain, manufacturing and research incentives (see 2102240052) -- the researchers said the Commerce Department’s export controls include loopholes for companies that sell advanced technologies to China.
The recent U.S. decision to increase sanctions and export controls on Russia, although largely narrow, could have significant implications for exporters doing business in Russia, law firms said. U.S. companies should pay close attention to new restrictions on certain controlled services and the potential impacts of the restrictions on disclosure and reporting requirements, the firms said.