A senior sanctions official with the Treasury Department is in Oman and Turkey this week to discuss sanctions against Hamas and Russia, the agency announced Nov. 27. Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, is speaking with the countries about ways they can help prevent Hamas and other terrorist groups from raising and moving funds, facilitate humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, and prevent and investigate trade that benefits Russia. Nelson’s trip comes after the multiple rounds of U.S. sanctions against Hamas and its financiers since the group’s terror attacks against Israel in October (see 2311140008, 2310270012 and 2310180003).
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The European Parliament last week overwhelmingly adopted three resolutions urging strong EU sanctions against those in Iran, Niger and Georgia involved in human rights abuses. The resolutions call on the bloc to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization and to sanction the country’s supreme leader, president and prosecutor-general. They also said EU member states should implement sanctions against the leaders of a July military coup in Niger, and asked the European Council to sanction those responsible for “violations of Georgian sovereignty” and human rights stemming from Russia's illegal occupation of certain regions of Georgia.
The U.K. last week renewed a Russia-related general license that authorizes certain transactions tied to payments that have been processed by a sanctioned credit or financial institution at some point in the payment chain. The license applies when the sanctioned party acted as an original, correspondent or intermediary institution where the recipient institution and the institution that sent the payment are not designated parties, among other conditions. The license, which was scheduled to expire Dec. 1 (see 2310020016), now lasts through Dec. 14.
The Commerce and Treasury departments earlier this month co-hosted a virtual “exchange” with small to mid-sized financial institutions, law enforcement and government agencies to discuss Russian attempts to evade export controls, the agencies announced Nov. 21. The exchange included officials from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and “exemplified the ongoing U.S. Government effort to further constrain and prevent Russia from accessing the international financial system and conduct economic activity to fund its invasion of Ukraine,” Treasury said. The effort came about a week after BIS and FinCEN issued another set of export control evasion red flags for financial services firms along with a new key term that banks and others can include in their suspicious activity reports (see 2311060055).
Risk intelligence firm Kharon has found nearly 700 additional entities that may be subject to sanctions as a result of the more than 200 Russia-related designations announced by the U.S. and the U.K. earlier this month (see 2311020015 and 2311080031). The firm said the additional companies, located across more than 20 jurisdictions, are majority owned by the new U.S.- and U.K.-sanctioned targets but weren’t publicly named in the two governments’ announcements.
The U.K. High Court in a decision released Nov. 15 said Senegalese oil trading company Der Mond Oil and Gas couldn't rely on sanctions as a reason for not paying Russian company Litasco SA for money due under an oil sale contract.
More than a month after a British appellate court suggested the U.K. government could treat every Russian public and private entity as a sanctioned party because they can potentially be controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a U.K. sanctions agency said it doesn’t plan to enforce its sanctions in that manner. The court ruling had caused widespread concern among the U.K. legal and business community, but the U.K.’s latest guidance means that uncertainty “is effectively resolved,” said law firm Osborne Clarke.
The EU’s next sanctions package against Russia could lead to new designations of more than 120 more people and entities, new import and export bans, a proposal to strengthen the price cap on Russian oil and more, the European External Action Service (EEAS) said in a notice last week. The package could also extend EU import bans for certain aluminum products, including wires, tubes, pipes and aluminum foil, the European Aluminum trade group said.
The American and British agencies in charge of sanctions implementation have “worked more closely than ever” during the last year and are planning to share more data, issue additional guidance and better harmonize their sanctions measures, they said last week. They also announced a plan to embed an official within the other country’s agency to help train and learn about each side's respective sanctions procedures.