A Texas federal court vacated a $2 million penalty imposed on ExxonMobil by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control for sanctions violations, in a decision issued Dec. 31. The Northern Texas U.S. District Court ruled that OFAC did not provide ExxonMobil “fair notice that their conduct was prohibited.” The decision stems from a lawsuit filed in August (see 1908280031) against OFAC, in which ExxonMobil alleged its business dealings with Rosneft, the Russian oil company owned by sanctioned oligarch Igor Sechin, did not warrant a sanctions penalty.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for 2019 in case they were missed.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 23-27 in case you missed them.
Along with sanctions related to Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline (see 1912190075), the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act includes a prohibition on Venezuela-related procurement actions and additional measures against Turkey, North Korea and Syria, according to a Dec. 27 post from Crowell & Moring.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Dec. 16-20 in case you missed them.
In the Dec. 19-20 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill Dec. 18 that would impose “wide-ranging sanctions” on Russian companies and people involved in Ukraine interference, human rights abuses and more, the committee said in a press release. The bill would also sanction Russian banks that support the government’s effort to undermine democracy, sanction investment in Russian liquefied natural gas projects, and impose sanctions on Russia’s cyber sector, sovereign debt, political figures and oligarchs. The bill would also sanction members of Russia’s shipbuilding sector that prohibit free navigation, and designate state-owned energy projects outside of Russia. The bill has strong bipartisan support and next heads to the Senate floor.
U.S. companies and exporters have not told the Trump administration that sanctions on Venezuela are hurting their business, according to Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special representative for Venezuela. As the U.S. continues one of its most active sanctions regimes (see 1911190028) against a country it says is marred by corruption and human rights abuses, companies are becoming more understanding of U.S. foreign policy goals, Abrams said.
The European Union’s Dec. 13 decision to renew Russian sanctions for six months (see 1912160009) will target Russia’s financial, energy and defense sectors and focus on the area of dual-use goods, according to a Dec. 19 press release from the European Council. Specifically, the sanctions are aimed at limiting access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for five “major” Russian state-owned financial institutions and their subsidiaries, as well as three Russian energy and three defense companies. The sanctions also impose an import and export ban on arms trade, establish an export ban for dual-use goods for military use or military end-users in Russia, and aim to curtail Russian access to “sensitive technologies and services” used for oil production and exploration, the press release said.
The U.S. sanctions bill against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline may not have the chilling effect that lawmakers expect, trade experts said. The U.S. should introduce export controls to bolster the sanctions, the experts said, but those restrictions may be too late because the Russia-Germany pipeline is nearing completion. The bill also may disproportionately sanction German businesses involved in the project instead of the real target, they said, which is Russia.