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.
The U.K. on Aug. 2 renewed a sanctions license allowing for certain sales, divestments or transfers of "financial instruments" held by the Russian Central Securities Depository. The license now runs through Oct. 12.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., Aug. 1 encouraged U.S. allies and partners to impose more sanctions on those waging Sudan’s civil war.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is concerned that Chinese Communist Party-backed companies may be “exploiting” the U.S. bankruptcy process to obtain American companies’ sensitive and proprietary information, the panel wrote in a new report accompanying its version of the FY 2025 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act.
The U.N. Security Council and the U.K. removed two people tied to Yemen from their sanctions lists, including former Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who died in 2017. They also removed his son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who the council said has “played a key role in facilitating the Houthi military expansion,” after lobbying from Yemeni leaders, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Aug. 2. Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh is Yemen’s ambassador to the UAE.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control renewed two Russia-related general licenses last week that authorize transactions related to debt, equity or currency-conversion. Both licenses were scheduled to expire Aug. 13 but now expire 12:01 a.m. EDT Oct. 12.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control is transitioning to a new online compliance hotline platform that it said will allow the agency to more efficiently respond to sanctions-related requests and questions from the public. Users can now submit queries directly through the OFAC Compliance Hotline page, the agency announced Aug. 2, which will help the “tracking of queries and help OFAC assess when additional public guidance may be helpful.” The agency said it plans to retire its current compliance hotline email adress on Aug. 16 and phone number on Dec. 31, and will fully transition to the online portal starting Jan. 1.
Companies should generally lean toward disclosing serious violations to the government -- especially those that involve national security issues -- even if there’s almost no chance the violation will be discovered, lawyers said last week.