Two Dominican nationals were sentenced to two years in prison and then two years of supervised release for smuggling juvenile American eels from Puerto Rico, DOJ announced. Saul Enrique Jose De la Cruz was sentenced on Nov. 21, and Simon De la Cruz Paredes was sentenced earlier this month.
The U.K. added two financial services companies to its Russia sanctions regime on Nov. 25. Alfastrakhovanie and VSK were listed for operating in the Russian financial services sector, which is a "sector of strategic significance to the Government of Russia," OFSI said.
The chair of the fisheries subsidies negotiations at the World Trade Organization, Iceland's Einar Gunnarsson, is looking to wrap up the second wave of fisheries negotiations by the General Council meeting in December. Gunnarsson said he held meetings with 28 WTO members and group representatives, finding that the "overwhelming majority" of these parties "consider that the draft text" on the fisheries subsidies talks "serves as the basis" for reaching a final deal.
The U.K. Office of Foreign Sanctions Implementation provided an overview of "red flags" that may indicate when Russian oil shipments have been "manipulated to appear as non-Russian through the use of fabricated or falsified certificates of origin." The guidance also lays out "potential mitigation measures" to help British entities shield themselves from the practice.
The U.S charged seven Indian businessmen with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes to Indian government officials to receive "lucrative solar energy supply contracts with the Indian government," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. The indictment, unsealed Nov. 20, also outlines various securities and wire fraud charges against the businessmen and names Gautam Adani, one of the world's richest people, as a defendant.
The U.K. added eight people to its global anti-corruption sanctions regime on Nov. 21, including Isabel Dos Santos, an Azerbaijani national, for misappropriating millions of dollars while acting as head of an Angolan state oil firm and director of an Angolan telecommunications company. Angolan national Paula Cristina Oliveira was sanctioned for her role in Dos Santos' scheme, as was Portuguese national Sarju Raikundalia.
The World Trade Organization's published agenda for the Dispute Settlement Body's Nov. 25 meeting includes a request from the EU to suspend certain concessions to the U.S. due to its antidumping and countervailing duties on ripe olives from Spain.
The former CEO of 500.com, which now operates as crypto mining company BIT Mining Ltd., was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes to Japanese government officials, DOJ announced. In addition, BIT Mining agreed to settle DOJ and SEC investigations into its FCPA violations, entering into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ.
Chinese lidar company Hesai Technology filed an amended complaint in its suit against its designation as a Chinese military company after the Pentagon relisted the company (see 2410230018), arguing that the decision is "just as unsubstantiated and weak as the original one that they recently refused to defend" (Hesai Technology Co. v. Department of Defense, D.D.C. # 24-01381).
A new U.K. general license released this week authorizes certain payments involving sanctioned Iranian airline Iran Air. The license, effective Nov. 18, allows payments that are required to "exercise Iran's right" to "overfly the United Kingdom" or "make a Stop for Non-Traffic purposes in the United Kingdom" in line with the Convention on International Civil Aviation and its Annexes. The license also allows for payments from Iran Air for "contractual obligations that arose prior to Iran Air's designation in respect of ground services or airport services in the UK," including ticket refunds from canceled flights to or from the U.K., as long as no payments are made to another sanctioned party.