The European Union appointed two judges to the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Council said. Krisztian Kecsmar of Hungary and Ion Galea of Romania were named following the resignations of Zoltan Csehi and Octavia Spineanu-Matei. The new judges' appointments are through Aug. 31, 2022.

The United Kingdom updated the physical address and email address of the Enforcement of Strategic Exports, Sanctions and Intellectual Property Rights office, the Department for International Trade said. The office is responsible for receiving and processing voluntary disclosures relating to already exported goods that should have received an export license. The address is 14 Westfield Ave., Stratford, London E20 1HZ; the email address is michael.halstead@hmrc.gov.uk.

The United Kingdom and Italy are set to initiate a dialogue to create a new export and investment partnership to boost trade between the two countries, the U.K.'s Department for International Trade said Oct. 13. U.K. International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Luigi Di Maio, meeting in Sorrento, Italy, made the announcement immediately following the G-20 meeting there. The dialogue will seek to increase exports in high-performing sectors such as life sciences, defense, security, digital and tech, DIT said. Inward investment, including in low-carbon industries such as onshore and offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon capture storage, will also be the target of increased attention. DIT hopes the dialogue will lead to annual ministerial talks and more forums for increased engagement between the countries' trade leaders.

United Kingdom-based nongovernmental organization Redress has published a template for anyone seeking to submit Magnitsky sanctions evidence to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. NGOs, lawyers, human rights defenders, activists, journalists and academics may use the template to suggest designations under the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020, the group said.

Maersk is diverting large vessels away from the United Kingdom due to container congestion at the country’s main port, the Financial Times reported Oct. 12. The shipping company is telling its big ships to avoid Felixstowe, which handles more than one-third of the country’s freight containers, the report said, and is instead sending smaller vessels to transport cargo from Europe to the U.K. Because of the U.K.’s truck driver shortage, Maersk said, it is taking longer to move fully loaded containers away from ports. The company called the Felixstowe port “among the top two or three worst-hit terminals” in the world, the report said.

The European Union left in place antidumping duties on wire rod imports from China after an expiry review, the European Commission said. The AD duties apply to "bars and rods, hot-rolled, in irregularly wound coils, of iron, non-alloy steel or alloy steel other than of stainless steel" from China, covering various combined nomenclature codes. The Valin Group received an individual dumping rate of 7.9%, while the country-wide rate for all other companies was set at 24%.

The United Kingdom updated its guidance for nongovernmental organizations and others relating to counterterrorist sanctions and export controls, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said Oct. 11. The guidance walks NGOs through export control and sanctions-related FAQs, including what forms of transactions are banned under financial sanctions, how the sanctions apply to NGOs and where to check if an NGO it might be dealing with a designated entity.

The United Kingdom updated its export control licensing data for April 1 - June 30, 2021, the Department for International Trade said. In a table on the overall licensing statistics, the U.K. saw 3,593 Standard Individual Export Licenses applications, with 3,526 issued. The U.K. also saw 93 Open Individual Export License applications, with 86 issued. The U.K. saw 98 Open General Export License registrations in this period for exports of dual-use items to EU member states.

The European Union implemented a definitive antidumping duty on aluminum flat-rolled products from China, the European Commission said. After receiving a petition from industry producers, the commission imposed the AD duty on "aluminum products, flat rolled, whether or not alloyed, whether or not further worked than flat rolled, not backed, without internal layers of other material." The scope of the duties was also modified to include aluminum products "in coils or in coiled strips, in cut-to-length sheets, or in the form of circles; of a thickness of 0,2 mm or more but not more than 6 mm; in plates, of a thickness of more than 6 mm; in coils or in coiled strips, of a thickness of not less than 0.03 mm but less than 0.22 mm."

The European Union extended by a year its sanctions regimes relating to human rights violations in Nicaragua and the proliferation of chemical weapons, the European Council said Oct. 11. The Nicaragua sanctions apply to 14 individuals and were imposed in 2019 due to the “deterioriating political and social situation” in the Central American nation. The chemical weapons sanctions apply to 15 individuals and two entities and are meant to back the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction.