In the April 10 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is requesting a nearly $25 million budget increase from the previous year, partly to help with staffing concerns, according to Treasury’s annual budget report. OTFI lists its “increasing role” in the Trump administration as justification for the increased budget. The agency is requesting about $165 million.
The Trump administration is considering increasing sanctions pressure on Venezuela by imposing sanctions on companies from third countries that do business with President Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan regime, according to a March 29 report by Reuters. The potential move was announced by John Bolton, White House national security adviser, who told Reuters the administration is moving in the “direction” of secondary sanctions.
A task force of sanctions policy experts published a list of trends that could have an impact on the future of U.S. sanctions, providing evidence of a U.S. shift toward unilateral foreign policy decisions and warning of unintended consequences from sanctions that are increasingly complex, according to a report commissioned by the Center for a New American Security.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 18-22 in case they were missed.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s recent action of sanctioning Evrofinance -- a Russian bank the U.S. suspects of working with the Venezuelan government -- was a two-part warning to Venezuela, the Kremlin and others, trade lawyer and former OFAC senior sanctions policy adviser Michael Dobson said in an interview. The U.S. will not hesitate to tighten restrictions on Venezuela, Dobson said, and it does not feel constrained to sanction “outside actors” assisting the Nicolas Maduro regime. The sanction (see 1903110014), announced in a March 11 OFAC notice, will be published in the March 22 Federal Register. Dobson, now a lawyer at Morrison Foerster, said he suspects Evrofinance of being a “very narrow vehicle” set up by Russia and Venezuela to facilitate trade and to “release some of the pressure from the Maduro regime's decreasing access to U.S. dollars.” The action will likely not become a trend for Venezuela, Dobson said, but a stand-alone action wherein the U.S. was able to enforce evasions of sanctions. “I think it’s just a warning,” Dobson said, adding that as long as U.S. companies aren’t doing business with Venezuela or Evrofinance, “I don't think this is going to have significant ripple effects.”
Valery Kosmachov was extradited from Estonia to face federal charges in the U.S. related to a "scheme to illegally procure sophisticated electronic components" and smuggle them to Russia, the Department of Justice said in a March 20 news release. The indictment was filed in September 2017 but was only unsealed on March 20, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Kosmachov was arrested in September 2018 and extradited to the U.S. on March 14, the DOJ said.
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices for March 18 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
Oleg Deripaska, a Russian businessman who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, sued the Treasury Department last week, alleging its sanctions rely on “unsubstantiated” allegations and have led to the “utter devastation” of his “wealth, reputation, and economic livelihood,” according to court documents. The suit, filed March 15, requests that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia order Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to remove the sanctions. It names Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Department OFAC Director Andrea Gacki, the Treasury Department and OFAC as defendants.
The U.S., the European Union and Canada announced additional Russian sanctions stemming from Russia's actions in Ukraine, according to media reports and a March 15 announcement by the U.S. Treasury Department. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added six people and eight entities to its Specially Designated Nationals List, OFAC said in a notice, while Canada reportedly imposed sanctions on 114 people and 15 entities and the EU targeted eight security service officials and military commanders. Individuals or companies who trade with any of the blocked people or entities may be penalized under U.S. sanctions.