European companies are looking for clarity around new rules that may require them to boost due diligence efforts among their non-EU subsidiaries and insert language in contracts that bars reexports of sensitive goods to Russia and Belarus, lawyers said this week.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has been looking into how U.S. computing chips have ended up in Russian weapons, hopes to issue a new report on its work before year’s end, the panel’s chairman said Nov. 20.
The U.S. this week issued a host of new sanctions against Russia, targeting Gazprombank, the country’s largest remaining non-designated bank, along with more than 50 smaller banks tied to Moscow, more than 40 securities registrars Russia has used to evade sanctions and 15 Russian finance officials. The agency also issued new and updated general licenses and warned foreign banks that they could be sanctioned for participating in a Russia-linked financial messaging system.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European lawmakers this week called for more sanctions against Russia, saying Moscow needs to feel more pressure to withdraw from Ukraine and end the war.
South Korea should be invited to join the Group of 7 nations because of its willingness to work with the U.S. and other allies in imposing sanctions and export controls against Russia, the country’s former foreign affairs minister said this week.
U.S. and U.K. officials over the past year continued to build on a partnership between their two leading sanctions agencies, including by sharing information about national security threats and ways the agencies can modernize their approaches to licensing and enforcement, they said in a joint statement released Nov. 19.
The U.S. this week sanctioned six people connected to the terror group Hamas, including by helping it smuggle weapons into Gaza or for coordinating with Russia.
The U.S. government should create a joint interagency task force led by the national security adviser to develop better ways to prevent China from obtaining sensitive dual-use technology from the U.S. and its allies, a bipartisan congressionally mandated commission said Nov. 19.
The EU expanded the scope of its sanctions framework on Russia to cover vessels and ports used to transfer Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles and related components for use in the war in Ukraine, the Council of the EU announced Nov. 18. The move bars the "export, transfer, supply, or sale from the EU to Iran of components used in the development and production of missiles and UAVs," the council said, and a ban on transactions with ports and locks that are owned or controlled by sanctioned parties or used to transfer Iranian UAVs, missiles or component parts to Russia.
The next Trump administration is likely to build on Biden’s outbound investment executive order and semiconductor export controls against China, researchers said last week, and could double down on sanctions against Iran and Venezuela in a return to the “maximum pressure” campaign Trump embraced during his first term.