The U.K. on Oct. 22 sanctioned a range of people and an entity for their ties to illegal migration to the country, including members of Balkan-based criminal gangs involved in selling fake passports, international financiers for their role in supporting human smugglers, and suppliers of small boat equipment.
The U.K. issued a new general license Oct. 22 authorizing certain transactions with the German subsidiaries of major Russian energy firm PJSC Rosneft Oil: Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing. The license authorizes the "continuation of business" activities with those subsidiaries -- including payments, contracts and the exchange of economic resources -- and any entity they own or control. The license, which expires Oct. 22, 2027, comes about a week after the U.K. sanctioned Rosneft (see 2510160021).
The Council of the European Union on Oct. 20 largely agreed to a European Commission proposal (see 2506180058) that would ban certain Russian gas imports starting on Jan. 1 "while maintaining a transition period for existing contracts." The council next must negotiate with the European Parliament on the final text for the proposal.
Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology said this week that it will appeal a recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denying the company's challenge to its designation as a Chinese military company. DJI will take the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (SZ DJI Technology v. U.S. Department of Defense, D.D.C. # 24-02970).
The U.N. Security Council and the U.K. this week amended listings under their sanctions regimes.
The European Commission announced a new proposal Oct. 6 to shrink the size of its tariff-rate quota for steel to 18.3 million tons a year and double the tariff rate for out-of-quota steel to 50%. The proposal would decrease the quota by 47% from 2024 and double the current 25% tariff rate applicable to out-of-quota steel.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 29 upheld the Office of Foreign Assets Control's addition of Iranian company Bahman Group to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. Judge Randolph Moss held that OFAC's denial of Bahman's delisting petition wasn't impermissibly predetermined, finding that even if OFAC's decision could be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act for being pre-decided, "the record offers no basis for concluding that OFAC’s decision-making in this case was pretextual or irredeemably biased under any standard" (Bahman Group v. Lisa Palluconi, D.D.C. # 22-3826).
A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Oct. 2 found that the EU violated its WTO commitments in its antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings on stainless steel cold-rolled flat products from Indonesia. Specifically, the dispute panel rejected the European Commission's attempt to countervail Chinese transnational subsidies in the Indonesian steel sector.
The U.K. on Oct. 3 revised the addresses for Embers of an Empire and Rampage Productions under its domestic counterterrorism sanctions and removed an alias for Europaisch-Iranische Handelsbank under its Iran (nuclear) sanctions regime.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation on Sept. 10 imposed a penalty of about $205,338 against pharmaceutical company Colorcon for making unlicensed payments to sanctioned Russian banks.