An EU report on the bloc's 2022 trade defense activities shows the EU "robustly" applied legislation to ensure its trade measures were effective, the European Commission said. By the end of 2022, around 177 trade measures were in place, almost a fifth of them circumvention measures and most of them on goods from China, Russia, India, South Korea and the U.S. The bloc opened two anti-circumvention proceedings in 2022 and suspended all import duties and safeguard measures on Ukrainian goods following Russia's invasion, the commission noted.
The U.K. dropped five entries from its Mali sanctions regime in a Sept. 1 notice. The Office of Financial Sanctions removed Ahmed Ag Albachar, Houka Houka Ag Alhousseini, Mahri Sidi Amar Ben Daha, Mohamed Ben Ahmed Mahri and Mohamed Ould Mataly, all of whom are members of Mali's political class.
Switzerland issued an updated sanctions guidance Sept. 1. The updated guidance "contains a general section on the sanction measures applicable in Switzerland" in addition to specific information about Ukraine, the country said.
Ukraine's National Agency on Corruption Prevention released a database that tracks the circulation of art objects bought or sold by sanctioned Russian individuals, the agency announced. The database has information on over 300 pieces of art estimated at $2 billion and allows users to report information pertaining to the art pieces.
The U.K.’s Export Control Joint Unit on Aug. 30 updated its consolidated list of “strategic military and dual-use items” that require export licenses. The updates revise technical notes in “ML13d of the military list and annex II of human rights list,” the agency said.
Germany arrested a businessman for illegally exporting about $780,000 in electronics components to a company in Russia, Germany's federal prosecutor’s office announced Aug. 29. Prosecutors said the man shipped the products between January 2020 and March 2023, and they were sent to Russian producers of “military hardware and accessory parts,” including makers of the ‘Orlan-10’ drone “currently used by Russian forces in Ukraine.”
The U.K.'s Department for International Trade expanded antidumping and countervailing duties on hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel from China for another five years. In a pair of notices, the DIT said the duties will now expire April 7, 2027. The countervailing duties range from 4.6% to 35.9%, including a 35.9% rate for all other exporters not given an individual rate. The antidumping duties range from zero to 31.3%.
A group of European countries not in the EU aligned with a series of EU sanctions decisions, under the regimes for the situation in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon and Russia.
The U.K.’s Revenue and Customs agency this week updated its guidance for certain commercial exports carried in “baggage,” saying those exports now need to be declared using the country’s Customs Declaration Service. Exporters have until March 20 to “move all full customs declarations across to the Customs Declaration Service,” the agency said, adding that shippers will need “specialist software to make a full export declaration electronically” within the service.
The U.K.'s Revenue & Customs fined a British company more than $1.26 million related to the "unlicensed trade of goods" in violation of sanctions on Russia, the customs agency announced. "Non-compliance with sanctions is a serious offence and punishable through large financial penalties or criminal prosecution," the agency said. The news release did not provide the name of the firm or the goods being sold but touted the U.K.'s new Economic Deterrence Initiative that addresses sanctions evasion "across the UK's trade, transport and financial sanctions."