The EU and Australia on May 28 signed a memorandum of understanding for a "bilateral partnership" on sustainable critical and strategic minerals, the European Commission announced. The deal calls for cooperation in three areas: integration of "sustainable raw materials value chains," cooperation on research "along the raw materials value chains," and cooperation to boost greater environmental, social and governance practices. The two sides will develop a road map with "concrete actions" over the next six months to implement the MOU, the commission said.

The European Commission on May 27 issued a "yellow card" notification to Senegal, telling the country to beef up its "fight against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated" fishing. The decision was made based on "serious shortcomings detected over the last years" with Senegal's compliance, the commission said, adding that it has caught "illegal exportations from Senegal to the EU market."

The Council of the European Union on May 27 adopted new rules on the cross-border transfer of substances of human origin, including blood, tissues and cells used in healthcare. The scope of the existing rules were expanded to include "human breast milk and intestinal microbiota" and other substances that may be applied to humans in the future.

The Council of the European Union last week officially adopted new EU-wide supply chain due diligence rules that will require certain companies to conduct specific due diligence on their supply chains, including to root out forced labor.

New recommendations adopted by the Council of the European Union this week call on the European Commission to create a new body to oversee research security efforts and for member states to issue guidance to universities on how to best protect their sensitive research.

The European Critical Raw Materials Act officially took effect May 23, the European Commission said, adding that the law should help Europe diversify its critical raw materials supply chains. The law could lead to limits on annual imports of certain raw materials from third countries and sets benchmarks to ensure, by 2030, that no third country accounts for more than 65% of bloc’s annual consumption of a “strategic raw material,” according to new guidance issued by the commission.

The U.K. this week updated its Russia guidance to add another type of evidence companies can use to prove their imported diamonds don’t violate sanctions against Russia.

The U.K. reminded exporters this week that they have until June 4 to move their export declarations to the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS) platform from the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight service. After June 4, declarations no longer can be submitted through the old service. The notice includes guidance to help companies understand how to submit a declaration through the new service and contact information exporters should use for questions.

A Russian court based in St. Petersburg on May 18 seized nearly $760 million of assets belonging to UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, according to the Financial Times. A subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom, RusChemAlliance, had told the court that the three western banks must pay bank guarantees under a contract with German firm Linde. RusChemAlliance's contract with Linde, which concerned the construction of a liquified natural gas processing plant and production facility in St. Petersburg, was paused due to EU sanctions on the Russian company.

The U.K. released various amendments to its sanctions regime last week, according to the Global Sanctions blog. The changes, which include May and June effective dates, bar sanctioned parties from acting as directors of British companies without a license; introduce new restrictions on imports of aluminum from Belarus; set new conditions for how sanctions violations can be investigated; and more.