An administrative law judge on July 18 upheld a March determination by the Federal Maritime Commission that the ocean transportation intermediary (OTI) license of Miami freight forwarder Netcycle Trading should be revoked and that the company should stop its OTI activities.
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision upending the Chevron principle of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes requires a more demanding review of the Office of Foreign Assets Control's use of the Global Magnitsky Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act, sanctioned Mir Rahman Rahmani and his son, Hafi Ajmal Rahmani, argued (Mir Rahman Rahmani v. Janet Yellen, D.D.C. # 24-00285).
Congress should get on with passing long-standing legislation on China sanctions and outbound investment, two Republican senators said during a panel discussion at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last week.
People and companies that tried to meet their sanctions reporting requirements to the U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation last week may have experienced issues due to the technology outage faced by businesses around the world July 19, OFSI said in a notice. The outage, caused by an issue with Microsoft's third-party information technology vendor CrowdStrike, "may be impacting upon firms’ ability to fulfill their reporting obligations to OFSI, or meet other deadlines to supply us with information," the agency said. If a reporting company missed a deadline because of the outage, they should "include the reason for the delay in your e-mail to us. OFSI will take this into account when assessing the submission."
The EU this month updated its set of best practices to help member states better implement sanctions. The 42-page guidance, issued by the Council of the European Union, outlines how new designations should be applied, how governments should approach delisting, the roles of companies and other “economic operators,” areas and procedures for coordinating sanctions with other agencies and countries, and more.
The U.K. on July 18 sanctioned various oil tankers that transport Russian oil, in an effort to "crack down on Russia's 'shadow fleet,'" the U.K. Prime Minister's Office announced. Eleven Russian ships were sanctioned, including the Rocky Runner, which previously attempted to evade British restrictions by "changing its operator."
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned two members of the Russian “hacktivist group” Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, Yuliya Vladimirovna Pankratova and Denis Olegovich Degtyarenko, for cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure. OFAC said Pankratova is the group's leader and Degtyarenko is its primary hacker, and they have helped the group conduct cyberattacks against Ukraine and governments and companies supporting Ukraine.
European officials last week called for more EU-U.S. cooperation on China policy, particularly around trade restrictions, to respond to Beijing’s unfair market practices and deter its military.
Emily McGlone, a former sanctions investigator and compliance officer with the Treasury Department, has joined JPMorgan Chase as vice president sanctions lead, she announced this week. McGlone left Treasury in October and spent about eight months as a foreign affairs officer with the State Department before joining JPMorgan this month, according to her LinkedIn profile.
South Korea sanctioned Hong Kong-based shipping company HK Yilin Shipping Co. and the North Korean-flagged vessel, called Tok Song, for violating sanctions on North Korea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced July 18, according to an unofficial translation. A vessel owned by Yilin Shipping took coal from Tok Song in March in a ship-to-ship transfer off North Korea's coast, the ministry said. Future financial exchanges with the shipping company will require prior approval from South Korea's Financial Services Commission or the Governor of the Bank of Korea. The government said it "will continue to take strong and consistent law enforcement measures against ships and shipping companies involved in the transport of prohibited goods."