Three Senate committee chairs urged the Biden administration last week to continue enforcing a new executive order that allows the U.S. to sanction "foreign persons" responsible for increased violence in the West Bank (see 2402010053).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a technical notice to users of its new Sanctions List Service (see 2405060043) of a possible error involving old URLs of the agency’s sanctions data files. OFAC said it has received reports that “users with automated processes designed to download sanctions data files at” certain old URLs are receiving "403 errors" when trying to access the SLS hosted files.
The State Department last week removed Cuba from its list of countries that aren’t cooperating fully with U.S. counterterrorism efforts, an agency spokesperson told reporters May 16. The spokesperson said several recent actions by Cuba -- including the fact that it resumed “law enforcement cooperation” with the U.S. on antiterrorism efforts in 2023 -- led the State Department to remove the country from the list.
EU industry gave a wide range of feedback on the European Commission’s January white paper on export controls, saying they support the idea of a new EU-wide forum to coordinate on export restrictions and urged the commission to do more to make sure new controls are introduced evenly across all member states. Others said the EU should set binding deadlines for licensing decisions, fix the bloc’s “vague” export definition for intangible technology transfers, and make it easier for companies to navigate EU member states’ increasingly conflicting export rules.
Former DLA Piper trade attorneys Nate Bolin and David Allman joined K&L Gates as partners in the antitrust, competition and trade regulation practice, the firm announced. The two lawyers will focus on national security law matters, including export controls and sanctions.
The U.K. on May 16 renewed a general license under its Russian sanctions regime that allows British citizens to buy tickets from a sanctioned party for "flights or rail journeys originating in, or within, Russia." It also authorizes activities "reasonably necessary to effect the purchase of such tickets for flights or rail journeys." The license was scheduled to expire May 23 and now runs until May 23, 2026.
Trade groups representing the ocean freight and logistics industry are warning businesses about a new set of import rules that will soon apply to goods moving into or through Europe. They said companies that don’t comply with the rules when they take effect next month could face shipping disruptions or fines.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 16 approved several bills that could impose sanctions on China, Russia and the Houthis and tighten export controls on China.
Australia sanctioned several Iranian senior government and military officials, businesspeople and companies linked to the country’s “destabilising behaviour” of its missile and drone programs, which has “fostered instability across the region for many years,” Australia’s foreign affairs ministry said this week. Among the designations are Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, Iran’s defense minister, and Esmail Qaani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force. Australia also sanctioned the IRGC Navy, which it said wrongly seized an Israeli-linked and Portuguese-flagged civilian ship in international waters on April 13.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned two people and three entities in Russia for helping to transfer weapons and other military items from North Korea, including shipments of mortars, military communications equipment and aviation parts.