The Office of Foreign Assets Control released its Myanmar Sanctions Regulations to implement a February executive order that authorized sanctions against the country for the military-led coup earlier this year (see 2102100060). The regulations, effective June 1, were released in an “abbreviated form” to give “immediate guidance to the public,” OFAC said in a notice. The agency plans to supplement the regulations with more “interpretive and definitional guidance, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions.” The regulations include general definitions, information on blocked and exempt transactions, licensing requirements and penalties.
The Treasury Department’s upcoming budget proposal will ask for more money to address sanctions evasion practices, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a House Appropriations subcommittee May 27. Yellen said the agency is focused on limiting evasion tactics and is hoping to collaborate more with allies to address those issues and increase the overall effectiveness of economic sanctions.
President Joe Biden on May 26 officially announced nominations to fill two senior Treasury Department positions that oversee sanctions (see 2104300068). Biden nominates attorney Brian Nelson to be undersecretary of the Terrorism and Financial Intelligence office, which oversees the Office of Foreign Assets Control. He also nominates Treasury adviser Elizabeth Rosenberg for assistant secretary of terrorist financing.
Congress and the administration can take a more active role to allow humanitarian aid to better flow to sanctioned regions in Africa, which is often hindered from receiving that aid, charitable groups and sanctions experts told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa May 25. Some of the issues lie with licenses issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and a slow bureaucratic process that unintentionally slows aid shipments, they said.
Sanctions compliance is increasingly presenting challenges to companies around the world as more countries turn to sanctions as a foreign policy tool, Baker McKenzie lawyers said. Some recent challenges include the growing emphasis on sanctions enforcement and the due diligence issues presented by countries with little publicly available information on ownership chains, the lawyers said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on May 21 designated three entities and 13 vessels under the Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act (PEESA), which authorizes sanctions against Russia’s energy sector and its use of energy export pipelines. OFAC also issued a general license to exempt certain transactions with one of the sanctioned entities and issued two new frequently asked questions.
A “groundbreaking” settlement agreement between a German software company and three U.S. agencies (see 2104290069 and 2105070042) may signal greater enforcement of sanctions and export violations and present more compliance challenges for industry, law firms said. The more than $8 million settlement between SAP SE and the Justice, Treasury and Commerce departments -- the first non-prosecution agreement under the Justice Department's revised voluntary disclosure policies (see 2008180043) -- also includes several important lessons for businesses and may lay out how monitorships can be avoided, the firms said.
The Treasury and State departments May 20 sanctioned two senior Ansarallah military leaders for exacerbating Yemen’s civil war. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Muhammad Abd Al-Karim al-Ghamari and the State Department designated Yusuf al-Madani. The agencies said the two committed human rights violations and terrorism on behalf of Ansarallah, also known as the Houthis.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control amended the Terrorism List Governments Sanctions Regulations to reflect the U.S. decision to revoke Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (see 2012170015, 2101140018 and 2104120030). The final rule, effective May 20, removes a general license from the regulations and amends another license to remove references to the Sudanese government and Sudanese nationals.
President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the State Department’s assistant secretary for Western hemisphere affairs vowed to aggressively sanction human rights violators and said more can be done to stop sanctions evasion tactics. The nominee, Brian Nichols, also told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee May 19 that the agency should coordinate closely with the Treasury Department and voiced support for some of the agency’s Cuba restrictions.