The U.K. amended or corrected two entries under its Russia sanctions list and another under its Cyber sanctions list, according to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. The entry for Volodymir Vasilyovich Saldo, founder of the Salvation Committee for Peace and Order in Kherson, was amended to add his address. The entry for Vladimir Konstantinovich Markov, manager for Gazprom, had a correction made to his date of birth. Under the Cyber sanctions list, OFSI amended the entry for Vitaliy Nikolayevich Kovalev to clarify use of an alias.
The European Union’s “disengagement” from Russian energy supplies since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year “has worked faster than we expected,” Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy commissioner, said at an EU-U.S. Energy Council meeting this week. The bloc has been able to reduce its dependence on Russian energy partly by buying more gas from the U.S. -- Simson said the EU “more than doubled” its imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas last year.
The U.K. government and Parliament's Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee officially agreed on an oversight deal last month that will allow lawmakers to scrutinize U.K. foreign investment review decisions. The deal, outlined in a memorandum of understanding first agreed to in 2021, was delayed by “ministerial changes” within the BEIS Committee as well as “lengthy negotiations on the substance,” Linklaters said in a recent client alert.
A Swiss court found four executives at Gazprombank's Zurich branch guilty of failing to conduct due diligence before opening bank accounts for Russian cellist and Vladimir Putin associate Sergei Roldugin, the BBC reported. The Zurich District Court ruled that it was clear the millions of Swiss francs held in the accounts from 2014 to 2016 did not belong to Roldugin because he had no income, also finding that the bankers should have asked more about the source of the funds, according to another report by Reuters. The four bankers were fined more than $811,000 in total and suspended for two years.
The European Council carved out a humanitarian exemption to asset-freezing measures under U.N. sanctions regimes. Certain humanitarian actors, including U.N. programs and nongovernmental organizations, can now "engage in transactions with listed individuals and entities without any prior authorisation" if the action is for delivering humanitarian aid, the council said March 31. The council decision applied the exemption to 14 U.N. sanctions regimes "transposed into" EU law.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries reached a deal on an EU initiative to modernize export credits rules in support of green projects. The agreement will set streamlined terms and conditions so that government-backed export funding "can better meet the needs of exporters in an increasingly competitive landscape, while avoiding market distortions," the EU Directorate-General for Trade said April 3. The deal also will provide more flexible terms to widen the scope of "climate-friendly" transactions. The maximum repayment term will be bumped from 18 years to 22 years for climate-friendly transactions, and "from 8.5 and 10 years to up to 15 years for most other projects." The commission said the change is expected to take effect later this year.
The European Commission last week opened its public comment period as it prepares guidelines for exports of cyber-surveillance items. The guidance will look to aid exporters in complying with and conducting due diligence under the EU’s dual-use export controls. The commission is accepting feedback from industry associations, governments, academia, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations and others involved in exporting dual-use goods and technologies. The submission deadline is June 9.
A group of European countries not in the EU aligned with two recent sanctions moves byff the EU, the European Council said. Under the bloc's restrictions regime against Iran, the council amended the list of people and entities subject to sanctions. The countries of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway also imposed the decision.
The EU plans to launch a new project with nine member states to root out gaps in the bloc's Russia sanctions regime and boost coordination between national authorities when imposing penalties, Bloomberg reported March 29. The project, which will deepen ties between the European Commission and member state governments, could lay the groundwork for a new EU body to coordinate sanctions implementation, the officials said. The new project, to run for two years starting around June, would be the first instance of the EU's executive wing backing member states on sanctions enforcement at this scale, the Bloomberg report said.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation issued a new Russia-related general license authorizing certain transactions involving bond amendments and restructurings. The license lets a company, entity or institution that has issued a bond that has or may have bondholders who are sanctioned parties "effect the terms of any Bond restructuring or amendments agreed between itself and its Bondholders" through March 28, 2025. This permission only applies if no funds or economic resources are made available to a designated party as part of any such bond restructuring and any funds that a designated party would be entitled to are frozen and not made available to the designated party until they are no longer sanctioned. The license also permits a British person or entity to take any steps needed to "effect a bond restructuring," as long as the same two conditions listed previously also apply.