The Council of the European Union on Oct. 8 renewed the sanctions' regime on Sudan and ISIL/Da'esh and al-Qaeda for another year. The sanctions on those undermining the stability of Sudan currently cover six people and six entities and will now run until Oct. 10, 2025. The sanctions on ISIL cover 15 people and six entities and will now apply until Oct. 31, 2025.

The U.K. on Oct. 7 updated its end-user undertaking form -- which must be completed by all exporters to comply with standard individual export licences and standard individual trade control licences terms and conditions -- to remove references to its outgoing licensing system SPIRE. The country plans to retire SPIRE, or the Shared Primary Information Resource Environment, and replace it with its new digital export licensing system, Licensing for International Trade (LITE), in the coming months (see 2409190037).

EU member states on Oct. 3 voted to approve new countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles (see 2408200020) despite lobbying from Beijing and opposition from some member states, including Germany (see 2410030028). The new duties, "including the definitive findings" of the EU's CVD probe, must be published in the Official Journal of the EU by Oct. 30, the European Commission said.

The U.K. last week issued new guidance about the information-sharing provisions in its Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, a law meant to increase detection and enforcement of sanctions evasion, terrorism financing, money laundering and other economic crimes. The guidance outlines the “voluntary” measures within the law that are designed to give “greater clarity and comfort” to companies when sharing information about potentially risky customers, the U.K. said, and describes how companies “can ensure that they are protected by the provisions when undertaking direct and indirect sharing.”

The European Commission is proposing to delay its upcoming deforestation reporting requirements by one year to allow member states and third-country exporters to be better prepared and “fully establish the necessary due diligence systems” for all products covered by the new rules. The law is scheduled to take effect for most companies Dec. 30 and for small companies June 30, but the commission is proposing to extend those dates to Dec. 30, 2025, and June 30, 2026, respectively.

The EU General Court on Oct. 2 upheld the validity of the EU prohibition on the provision of legal advisory services to the Russian government and to entities established in Russia. The court said the sanction doesn't undermine the right of all persons to be advised by a lawyer for "conducting, pre-empting or anticipating judicial proceedings."

An annual report on trade agreements issued by the European Commission this week shows the EU has removed 140 barriers to EU exports in more than 40 countries over the last five years, unlocking more than $6 billion worth of EU exports in 2023 alone, the commission said. But it also said foreign trade barriers “have been on the rise,” adding that import local content requirements, “discriminatory practices” and import substitution “are becoming the industrial policy instrument of choice for some of our partners.”

With de minimis imports to the EU climbing to about $8.5 billion worth of goods from January to August this year, the European Commission is considering either changing its de minimis threshold or tackling the surge of Chinese exports in this channel in another way, the South China Morning Post reported from Brussels. That value of de minimis imports increased 61% compared with two years earlier, the newspaper said.

Luxembourg's Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) announced this week that it imposed an over $44,600 fine on Dock Financial, an "electronic money institution," for skirting money laundering and terrorist financing obligations. CSSF identified the company's violations during an on-site inspection from 2021 to 2022, finding that a "substantial part" of Dock's client portfolio wasn't subject to the required name screening controls "on a daily basis, over a substantial period of time." The commission also said, although Dock identified suspicions of money laundering "in 11 client files," the company reported them "with substantial delays." CSSF faulted the company's "internal governance framework," finding it deficient due to "insufficient controls performed by the second and the third lines of defence."

Notable language included in the U.K.’s regulations for its new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (see 2409130015) allows the agency to share information about possible violations with “any other regulatory body,” including those outside the U.K., Akin said in a client alert. The law firm said it expects to see OTSI “working closely with a range of sanctions coordinators globally to ensure trade sanctions operate effectively in cross-border matters.”