EFL Global acquired Trans American Customhouse Brokers, the buyer said in a Feb. 27 news release. The fully owned subsidiary of Sri Lanka’s Expolanka Holdings paid $42.5 million for a 100% equity interest in Trans American and its related companies, Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times reported.
The State Department is seeking public comments on information collections overseen by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. One deals with approval requests for its manufacturing license agreements, technical assistance agreements and other agreements; another involves the maintenance of records by DDTC registrants; a third involves the annual brokering report; and the last relates to the agency’s “Brokering Prior Approval” license. Comments are due March 30.
Glenn Oztemel of Westport, Connecticut, and Eduardo Innecco, a dual Brazilian and Italian citizen, were charged in an indictment unsealed in the District of Connecticut on Feb. 17 in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act scheme, DOJ announced. The duo allegedly violated the FCPA and committed money laundering as part of a scheme to pay bribes to Brazilian officials to obtain contracts from the Brazilian state-owned energy company Petroleo Brasileiro-Petrobras, DOJ said.
Customs brokers and forwarders commended an effort by CBP to modernize the export process for used self-propelled vehicles exports (USPVs), but said a range of questions “remain unanswered” about how the new pilot will work in practice. They also said CBP can make several improvements to the pilot, including by allowing filers to submit electronic export documents before a vehicle is delivered to the port of export.
The EU set two price caps for oil products exported from Russia under commodity code 2710, the European Council announced Feb. 4. The caps apply to petroleum products exempt from the bloc's ban on maritime transport of oil products to third countries from Russia and on related technical assistance, brokering services or financing or financial assistance.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its Russian price cap guidance last week to include information on the recently imposed cap on Russian petroleum products. The measure -- which took effect 12:01 a.m. EST on Feb. 5 -- sets a $45 per barrel cap for petroleum products that trade at a discount to crude, such as naphtha and waste oils, and a $100 per barrel cap on products that trade at a premium to crude, such as motor fuel.
South Korea arrested an oil broker who allegedly organized the shipment of 18,000 tonnes of diesel to North Korea without receiving the proper approval, the South Korean coast guard announced, according to an unofficial translation. The diesel was shipped 35 times from October 2021 to January 2022. A Russian oil tanker run by a South Korean supplier carried out ship-to-ship transfers with a Chinese vessel in the South China Sea. This vessel then made its own ship-to-ship transfers with a North Korean vessel, the coast guard said.
The U.S. should take more steps to counter corruption and sanctions evasion efforts by Russian kleptocrats, including through a new multilateral anti-corruption council, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said this week. While he applauded recent funding passed by Congress to provide more resources for government enforcement efforts, he said lawmakers have more work to do to close sanctions loopholes.
Although the State Department is working to better streamline its export licensing process, the agency is facing increasingly complicated licensing decisions and a large volume of applications, said Sarah Heidema, policy director for the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. She said DDTC has “thousands of licenses pending adjudication” at “any given time,” and some require extensive analysis.
Compliance with a new country of origin (COO) reporting requirement in the Automated Export System would be difficult for smaller and occasional exporters, many of which would likely have to develop new processes to report that information, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America told the Census Bureau. The NCBFAA urged Census to research whether it can collect that COO information from other sources before it decides to move forward with the proposal.