The Council of the EU on April 12 passed a law establishing minimum rules for the prosecution of "violation or circumvention of EU sanctions in member states," the council announced. Various actions, including working to skirt a travel ban and trading in sanctioned goods, will be considered criminal offenses in all member states.
Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, introduced a bill last week that would require the Treasury Department to submit quarterly reports to Congress on the number of businesses that have met FinCEN’s new beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting rule.
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations have discussed the possibility of imposing additional sanctions on Iran in response to that country’s drone and missile attack on Israel last week, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said April 15.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 15 issued new sanctions against 12 entities and 10 people for helping Belarus evade U.S. sanctions and support Russia’s “illegal” invasion of Ukraine.
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently met with a group of industry and university officials to hear about challenges plaguing export compliance professionals, including problems doing due diligence on foreign parties, lengthy timelines for export license applications and more.
OverRuled, a research platform managed by Akin Gump focused on government regulatory and enforcement data, has acquired sanctions guidance research system Turbofac, Akin Gump said last week. The firm said Turbofac, a database that compiles guidance statements and other documents from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, will make OverRuled an “essential one-stop-shop for sanctions professionals globally.” The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee said April 12 that he has asked the Treasury Department to provide “an accounting of all international high-value Iranian assets around the world that are currently blocked by U.S. sanctions.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on April 12 removed Bosnia and Herzegovina businessman Slobodan Stankovic and his Republika Srpska-based engineering firm, Integral Inzenjering, from the Specially Designated Nationals List. The agency sanctioned Stankovic in 2022 for ties to corruption (see 2210030015). OFAC didn’t release more information about the delistings, but news reports indicate Stankovic died last year.
China last week announced sanctions against two U.S. defense companies for supporting U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. The designations, imposed under China's anti-foreign sanctions law (see 2310230032), target General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems by freezing their assets in China and placing travel bans on their senior managers, according to an unofficial translation of an April 11 notice from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The U.S. and the EU last week announced coordinated sanctions against Hamas by targeting people and entities with ties to the terror group.