The U.K. on Aug. 5 amended a Russia sanctions license allowing designated parties to make certain payments to British billing authorities. The update added a permission to the list of permitted payments, allowing for the payment of fees "owed by or due from UK" sanctioned parties to the billing authorities for "Business Improvement District levies."
The Council of the European Union on Aug. 5 sanctioned another 28 people for suppressing human rights in Belarus. The designations target two deputy heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Main Department for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption, which conducts "arbitrary and unlawful arrests" of activists and civil society members, the council said. Members of the judiciary and correctional institutions were also included for "politically motivated sentences" imposed against activists. Others sanctioned include "a group of long-time supporters of" Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, including the host of a news program and chairman of the Youth Council at the National Assembly of Belarus.
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.
Parts of the expert testimony submitted by the U.S. in a criminal export control case should be excluded from the trial because the experts relied on State Department commodity-jurisdiction determinations prepared outside the court, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said July 31. The court said the defendants didn't have a chance to cross-examine the State Department officials who prepared the determinations because they didn't offer testimony during trial.
A recent federal district court ruling limiting the U.S. anti-smuggling statute to physical goods won't affect export control enforcement efforts on data and other intangible exports sent digitally across borders, lawyers said in interviews. Although the U.S. District Court in Kentucky said a statute barring the unlicensed export of certain merchandise, articles or objects didn't apply to an email with magnet schematics sent to Chinese manufacturers (see 2407290046), lawyers noted that U.S. export control agencies have their own, specific enforcement authorities to regulate those digital transmissions.
Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., co-chairs of the Congressional Venezuela Democracy Caucus, introduced a resolution last week calling for new U.S. sanctions to pressure Venezuelan ruler Nicolas Maduro to stop trying to “steal” the country’s recent presidential election.
Trade groups, lawyers, investment firms, technology companies and foreign governments suggested a range of changes to the Treasury Department’s proposed outbound investment rules (see 2406210034), echoing calls last year for more clarity surrounding the due-diligence steps that will be required of deal-makers and warning that the U.S. risks chilling a broad range of U.S. ventures in China (see 2310050035). Several commenters also urged the Biden administration not to finalize the new prohibitions without similar buy-in from allies, with at least one group suggesting the U.S. is further from coordinating the rules among trading partners than it has let on.
Blake Hulnick, former attorney-adviser in the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s chief counsel office, was named senior adviser to the Treasury Department’s general counsel, he announced on LinkedIn. Hulnick joined Treasury in 2023.
Katarina Caretto O'Regan, a Treasury Department senior sanctions policy adviser, began a temporary assignment as senior adviser to Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, she announced on LinkedIn. O'Regan has been a sanctions policy adviser at Treasury since March 2022.
Brian Nelson, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, is leaving the agency to join the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harrris, Axios reported last week. A Treasury spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment, but confirmed on LinkedIn that Nelson is being replaced by Brad Smith, the current director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, on an acting basis.