The EU on June 20 agreed to a 14th package of Russia sanctions that will continue targeting Russia’s oil trade, designate various entities and people for their ties to Russia, and tighten restrictions against a so-called shadow fleet of vessels moving Russian oil below the price cap set by the Group of 7 nations and others (see 2405150025).
Canada this week sanctioned 13 people for their ties to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison in February and the country’s “continued gross and systematic violations of human rights.” The designations target senior officials and employees of Russia’s investigation agency, penitentiary service and police force who were involved in Navalny’s “ill-treatment” and death, Canada said. The U.S. and the EU also have sanctioned people responsible for Navalny's imprisonment and death (see 2402230035 and 2403220016).
A government technical advisory committee is working on two reports about compliance challenges posed by the Bureau of Industry and Security's foreign direct product rule and its semiconductor export controls.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will add three entities linked to Kaspersky, a Russian cybersecurity software firm, to the Entity List for working with Russian military and intelligence services. The agency also will place new restrictions on American companies and people buying or using Kaspersky cybersecurity and antivirus software.
The U.S. this week designated people and companies tied to the sanctioned president of the Serb Republic and his family, including businesses they use to generate wealth or evade sanctions, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said. OFAC also issued two new general licenses to authorize certain transactions with the people and companies and updated one existing license.
A new strategy by the Bureau of Industry and Security to add a set of addresses -- instead of company names -- to the Entity List could lead to screening challenges for exporters, industry officials told the agency this week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is working on another rule to address some of the comments it received from its updated semiconductor export controls released in October (see 2310170055), said Sharron Cook, a senior BIS export policy analyst.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on June 24 will add three companies associated with Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky to the Entity List, the agency said in a notice released June 20. The companies, two located in Russia and one located in the U.K., work with Russian military and intelligence authorities, BIS said. They will be subject to license requirements for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations, and licenses will be reviewed under a presumption of denial.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is hoping to publish a rule this summer that would again update or clarify how export controls apply to releases of technology for standards setting or development in standards organizations, said Hillary Hess, director of the BIS regulatory policy division.
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands last week sustained the conviction of a person (name redacted) for violating the nation's sanctions laws, according to an unofficial translation. The court found that the accused's transfer of money to the person's brother, who's a fighter for ISIS in Syria, amounted to the transfer of funds to a terrorist organization, in violation of Dutch sanctions laws.