The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a new general license that eliminates the expiration date for certain authorized transactions with the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, an international crude oil transportation project involving Russia, and the Tengizchevroil project, another oil venture involving Chevron and Kazakhstan. New General License 124 authorizes certain transactions with those projects that would normally be prohibited under a January determination that blocks the provision of U.S. petroleum services to parties in Russia (see 2501100027).
The U.K. this week fined a fuel transportation company about $6,600, or 5,000 pounds, for failing to respond to a request for information from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. OFSI said U.K.-registered Svarog Shipping & Trading Company Limited, which does business in the maritime oil shipment sector in Cyprus, didn’t respond in time to OFSI questions last year despite receiving “multiple reminders” about the deadline.
The Census Bureau this week updated two license type codes in the Automated Export System to reflect which Export Control Classification Numbers can be used with those codes, which need to be reported for certain chip-related exports.
The U.K. issued a new version of a Russia-related legal services general license to reset the cap on fees that can be paid to British law firms by parties subject to Russia-related sanctions. The legal fees cap is set at about $2.68 million (or 2 million pounds) per law firm and the expenses cap at 10% of the legal fees, up to about $268,000 (or 200,000 pounds), for the duration of the license. The license takes effect April 29 and expires Oct. 28. The previous license expired April 28 (see 2410290017).
The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged the Trump administration April 21 to give Syria additional sanctions relief to help stabilize the war-torn country.
The U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation on April 23 added three FAQs to address issues surrounding the use of sanctions licenses that mention Rosbank PJSC and Bank Otkritie.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week published Arabic translations of several general licenses that authorize certain transactions with the Yemen-based Houthis, also known as Ansarallah. The licenses cover transactions related to certain agricultural goods, telecommunications, personal remittances, petroleum products, port operations and diplomatic missions.
A new license issued this week by the Office of Foreign Assets Control authorizes payments of certain taxes, fees, import duties, licenses, certifications and other similar transactions involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation that would normally be blocked under Directive 4 of Executive Order 14024. General License 13M authorizes those transactions through 12:01 a.m. EDT July 9 as long as they are “ordinarily incident and necessary to the day-to-day operations in the Russian Federation of such U.S. persons or entities.”
The State and Treasury departments should form a task force to “robustly investigate and sanction” illicit gold trafficking networks, a watchdog group representative told a House panel March 25.
The U.K. on March 24 revised two Russia-related general licenses to capture certain transactions with Russian commercial bank T-Bank. The licenses, which authorize certain humanitarian activity and energy-related payments, had previously allowed certain transactions with Rosbank or Tinkoff Bank. Tinkoff Bank has since changed its name to T-Bank (see 2503070043), and the company operates Rosbank as one of its branches.