A month after the Jan. 29 imposition of export controls on vaccines in the European Union (see 2102010012), industry experts say the controls were meant only to send a message to vaccine manufacturers at risk of failing to fulfill their contracts, and that the measures have no real risk of drastically reorienting global vaccine supply chains. The controls were issued as a way to make sure British pharmaceutical company and vaccine developer AstraZeneca satisfied commitments to the EU and didn't redirect vaccine shipments to the United Kingdom, among other locations, experts said. The EU has yet to use the export authorization regime.
The United Kingdom announced further sanctions on six members of Myanmar's State Administration Council -- the ruling body established following the Feb. 1 coup. The move expands the sanctions list to all military members of the council, stopping them from traveling to the U.K. and preventing businesses and institutions from interacting with them, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced Feb. 25. The six individuals are Commander-in-Chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Secretary of the SAC Lt. Gen. Aung Lin Dwe, Joint Secretary of the SAC Lt. Gen. Ye Win Oo, Gen. Tin Aung San, General Maung Maung Kyaw and Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun. The U.K. also will temporarily suspend all promotion of trade with Myanmar while a Trade Review is conducted to “work with British businesses and civil society to reshape our approach to trade,” the news release said.
The Commerce Department on Feb. 26 announced three new staffing appointments to the Bureau of Industry and Security. Steven Emme, a former Akin Gump trade counsel, was named chief of staff; Sahar Hafeez, a former Pillsbury Winthrop trade lawyer, was named senior adviser to the BIS undersecretary; and Feras Sleiman, a former policy adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was named BIS's congressional affairs specialist.
More than 20 Republican senators are sponsoring a bill that would allow Congress to approve or block efforts by the Biden administration to lift sanctions against Iran. The bill, introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., would serve as a “check” on President Joe Biden's plan to rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal (see 2101280043), Hagerty said Feb. 26. “The United States cannot fall victim again to Tehran’s blackmail, bribery, and extortion by giving into its demands for sanctions relief,” Hagerty said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Ahmad Hassan Mohammed al Asiri, Saudi Arabia’s former deputy head of the General Intelligence Presidency, and the country’s Rapid Intervention Force for their involvement in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. They were designated under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for human rights violations, OFAC said Feb. 26.
The State Department is expected to follow through with a rule that would permanently revise the International Traffic in Arms Regulations to allow employees involved in ITAR-related activity to work remotely. The rule, crafted under the Trump administration, was sent for interagency review in December but was withdrawn in January as part of the Biden administration's regulatory freeze on the previous administration’s pending regulations (see 2101210013).
Germany will now generally issue export permits electronically, using the platform to issue permits, null notifications, trade information and extensions, and changes to notices in foreign trade law, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control said, according to an unofficial translation. The switch, effective March 1, takes place on Germany's ELAN-K2 filing portal. The German government will still issue general permits, permits for repeated export after previous import and transit permits in writing, and it reserves the right to issue any approval in writing if it is needed, it said.
The European Union is extending sanctions it has in place on 88 individuals and 7 entities until Feb. 28, 2022, for their roles in enacting electoral fraud and the current regime's violent repression of the opposition and protesters in Belarus. In a Feb. 25 press release, the European Council announced the continuation, which includes President Alexandr Lukashenko and consists of a travel ban and asset freeze on listed individuals and an asset freeze on the entities. The sanctions were initially put in place following the fraudulent presidential election in August 2020 and ensuing wave of violently repressed demonstrations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security's effort to control emerging and foundational technologies is creating “substantial uncertainty” in the technology sector, Microsoft President Brad Smith told the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 23, according to his prepared testimony. Smith urged BIS and the Commerce Department to create a “balanced and coherent framework” to protect U.S. technologies without “isolating” U.S. companies, including from working with China.
In a case against an Iranian banker accused of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran, Judge Alison Nathan for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York lambasted federal prosecutors over their mishandling of evidence and dereliction of responsibility. Stopping short of finding them guilty of knowingly withholding crucial information or intentionally misrepresenting facts to the court, Nathan in a Feb. 22 ruling called for a full investigation of the prosecutors' actions by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility and said she hopes the government's reforms on evidence handling training will ensure that similar action is not repeated.