The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to implement more emerging technology controls during this fiscal year, Karen Nies-Vogel, BIS’s director of the Office of Exporter Services, said, speaking briefly during an Oct. 28 meeting of the Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee. Nies-Vogel said the agency has so far issued 38 emerging technology controls and is “looking forward” to implementing more in the coming months and “years to come.”
The Department of Justice this week announced new initiatives to “strengthen” its enforcement of corporate crime, which could have wide-ranging effects on cases involving export controls, sanctions and foreign bribery violations. The initiatives were presented by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco as “changes” to the agency’s enforcement policies, including how DOJ will calculate mitigation when assessing penalties, how it will weigh past misconduct for unrelated violations and how it will use independent monitors to ensure compliance with settlement agreements.
The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation added one entry to its Libya sanctions regime in an Oct. 26 financial sanctions notice. Osama Al-Kuni Ibrahim was placed under an asset freeze and a travel ban for his role as de facto manager of the Al Nasr detention center, responsible directly or indirectly for violating international human rights law.
Switzerland added eight people to its Russia sanctions list, aligning with the European Union, the Swiss Federal Council said. The listed individuals, according to a notice from the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, are Mikhail Nikolaevich Belousov, Kievskiy District Court judge; Andrey Nikolaevich Dolgopolov, chairman of the Kievskiy District Court; Yevgeniy Sergeevich Kolpikov, military prosecutor; Magomed Farmanovich Magomedov, special cases investigator; Leonid Vladimirovich Mikhailiuk, head of the Federal Security Service in Crimea and Sevastopol; Viktor Anatolyevich Mozhelianskiy, vice chairman of the Central District Court in Simferopol; Galina Vladimirovna Redko, Crimea Supreme Court judge; and Vladimir Nikolaevich Terentev, who heads the main investigation department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. The eight were listed due to their role in undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control released the texts of six previously issued Ukraine-related General Licenses. The licenses are GLs 16, 16A, 16B, 16C, 16D and 16E. The licenses authorized certain transactions with Russian companies EN+ Group PLC and JSC EuroSibEnergo. The first five have expired, the sixth was revoked. The U.S. removed sanctions from both companies in 2019 (see 1905150064).
Although the Bureau of Industry and Security's new export controls on cybersecurity items are intended to restrict only malicious exports, they could place wide-ranging compliance burdens on the entire cybersecurity sector, law firms said. Technology companies and others operating in the sector still have time to convince BIS to narrow the scope of the rule, which takes effect in January but contains several “ambiguities,” firms said.
Michael Casey, former partner at Kirkland & Ellis, joined Wilson Sonsini as a partner in the London office's national security practice, the firm announced. Casey brings a history of advising clients on national security and international economics matters, including "investigations and regulatory compliance matters related to economic sanctions, export controls, money laundering, corruption, and white-collar fraud," the firm said.
The European Union amended the criteria for its Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions regime, adding involvement in "planning, directing, sponsoring or participating in attacks against ... medical personnel or humanitarian personnel" to the criteria for adding individuals and entities to the list. Before the update, the sanctions criteria only included involvement in attacks on the United Nations Organization Mission peacekeepers and U.N. personnel. The move aligns the EU's DRC sanctions criteria with those of the U.N.
President Joe Biden extended a national emergency that authorizes certain sanctions against people and entities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the White House said Oct. 25. The country is “marked by widespread violence and atrocities that continue to threaten regional stability.” The emergency was extended for one year beyond Oct. 27.
The United Nations Security Council, the U.S. and the United Kingdom this week added a new entry under their Libya sanctions regimes. All three sanctioned Osama Al Kuni Ibrahim, who they said has committed human rights violations as the manager of the Al Nasr Detention Center in Zawiyah.