The European Parliament on Oct. 3 voted to pass the bloc's proposed Anti-Coercion Instrument, which will allow EU to impose countermeasures, including tariffs and other trade and investment restrictions, on third countries for economic coercion (see 2306060019).

LONDON -- The U.K. is on track to fully deploy the country’s new digital export licensing system in March 2025, said Rosemary Pratt, director of the U.K.’s Export Control Joint Unit. Pratt said the new system, which has faced several delays, has been a “very long running, challenging project,” but it’s now entering the “final phase” and will make export licensing more efficient for U.K. companies.

The U.K. issued a General License Sept. 29 under its Russia sanctions regime to provide certainty that a credit or financial institution can return a payment to another such institution which has been processed by a sanctioned credit or financial institution at some point in the payment chain. The license applies when the sanctioned party acted as an original, correspondent or intermediary institution where the recipient institution and the institution that sent the payment are not designated parties, and the original account holder and the original intended recipient are not sanctioned parties. The license expires at the end of the day on Dec. 1.

An academic and a think tank scholar agreed that, despite the upcoming visit between the EU president and the U.S. president, they don't expect the global arrangement on steel and aluminum negotiations to conclude by their Oct. 31 deadline.

The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism officially entered its transitional phase Oct. 1, requiring traders to report, but not yet pay, taxes on carbon emissions associated with certain imports. During the transitional phase (see 2308170033), the mechanism will apply to imports of cement, iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen. EU importers of those goods must report on the volume of those imports and the greenhouse gas emissions “embedded during their production,” the European Commission said Sept. 29.

A group of European countries not in the EU aligned with two recent sanctions decisions from the European Council, one under the Guinea-Bissau restrictions list and one pertaining to the situation in Iran.

The U.K. added 10 individuals and one entity to its Russia sanctions regime in a Sept. 29 notice. The individuals include members of the Russian-installed governments in occupied regions of Ukraine, Russian Central Election Commission members and Russian government officials in Crimea. The sanctioned entity is the Russian Central Election Commission, which arranged illegitimate referendums in occupied Ukrainian regions and attempted to legitimize the results.

The EU expanded its broadcast ban on Russian media companies to include five new companies, according to a European Council regulation. They were listed under Annex IV, which bars operators from broadcasting or enabling, facilitating or otherwise contributing to broadcast any content from the listed entities, including via internet service providers. The newly listed entities are RT Balkan, Oriental Review, Tsargrad, New Eastern Outlook and Katehon.

The U.K. updated its Russia sanctions guidance to add additional licensing grounds with the aim of divesting from Russia, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said. The guidance says that, for divestment purposes, a license may be granted to provide oil refining goods, energy-related goods, luxury goods, jet fuel and "Russia's vulnerable goods" in Russia or to someone linked with Russia. The licensing grounds also cover the provision of technical assistance, brokering services, financial services or funds related to the oil refining goods, energy-related goods, jet fuel and Russia's vulnerable goods.

The U.K. amended the entry for Alexei Kozlov under its Russia sanctions list. Kozlov is a member of the board of directors at Transneft, a Russian energy firm. The Sept. 27 amendment removed identifying information on date of birth, which had been listed only as the year 1974, and added alternate spellings of his name.