The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Cambodian businessman Ly Yong Phat, his company L.Y.P. Group Co., LTD, and the O‑Smach Resort for their ties to serious human rights abuses, including forced labor. The agency also designated Cambodia-based Garden City Hotel, Koh Kong Resort and Phnom Penh Hotel for being owned or controlled by Ly.
Most EU member states missed a July deadline to implement the EU’s new corporate sustainability reporting rules into national law, causing uncertainty for businesses that want to ready their compliance procedures before the rules take effect beginning next year, a major European law firm said.
New EU guidance released this week offers insight into how the bloc will implement its sweeping new corporate sustainability due diligence rules, including how member states should decide whether traders do enough to collect required supply chain information.
China last week imposed sanctions against U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., for frequently making "remarks and actions that interfere in China's internal affairs and undermine China's sovereignty, security and development interests," China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, according to an unofficial translation. The ministry said it will impose an asset freeze and travel ban on McGovern.
At a field hearing in Michigan, House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and committee member Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., emphasized electric vehicle battery maker Gotion's ties to suppliers that use Uyghur forced labor, and questioned why Gotion should be allowed to open factories in their states. Gotion declined to send a representative to testify, they said.
Although some industries may initially have an easier time complying with the EU’s new anti-deforestation rules when they take effect at the start of next year, others may face a learning curve trying to ramp up their due diligence efforts, supply chain sustainability lawyers and advisers said this week. They also warned that EU companies that trade in large volumes of goods subject to the new law likely won’t be able to comply using only a manual due diligence process.
The State Department this week urged companies to increase their due diligence efforts for supply chains that involve certain critical minerals from Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying illegal trade in gold, tantalum and other minerals from the African Great Lakes Region “continues to play” a role in financing conflict in the region. In a “statement of concern,” the agency said companies trading in these critical minerals may be aiding human rights abuses, including forced labor.
The U.K. must reassess whether it should investigate cotton imports from China suspected of being made with forced labor after an appellate court ruled last month that the country’s National Crime Agency wrongly decided against opening the probe.
Four Republican senators asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a letter last week to explain why her department hasn’t made greater use of its authority to sanction those who commit human rights violations against China’s Uyghur minority.
All 12 Republicans on the House Select Committee on China, including Chairman John Moolenaar of Michigan, urged the Treasury Department May 31 to investigate whether six Chinese companies should be sanctioned for helping Iran’s military and energy sectors evade U.S. sanctions.