The U.K.’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation issued three new FAQs to provide guidance on its Russia-related general license that authorizes certain transactions involving brokerage firms.
Dual U.S. and Russian national Vadim Yermolenko was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and ordered to forfeit $75,547, for his role in a scheme to illegally export controlled dual-use and military items to Russia as part of a Moscow-led sanctions evasion scheme. He pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, commit bank fraud and defraud the U.S. (see 2411010047).
Despite co-sponsoring a bill that would impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia and its supporters if Moscow refuses to reach a peace deal with Ukraine, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said Aug. 19 he is hesitant for Congress to take up the legislation when it returns from its August recess.
The Senate “stands ready” to give President Donald Trump “any economic leverage” he needs to pressure Russia to reach a peace deal with Ukraine, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Aug. 18 as Trump was planning to meet with Ukrainian and European leaders at the White House.
The U.S. is holding off on imposing new sanctions against Russia because it believes those measures will undercut any chance of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine “for the foreseeable future,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week, despite calls from the EU and others to continue strengthening sanctions against Moscow.
The U.K.'s $400,000 fine in July of a British management services firm for violating Russia sanctions (see 2507310042) shows that merely having a sanctions compliance program may not be enough to mitigate a fine, Steptoe said in a client alert.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week redesignated Garantex, a virtual currency exchange with operations in Moscow, and sanctioned other companies and people that it said are involved in malicious cyber activities.
While the U.S. government is going to “great lengths” to ease broad-based sanctions on Syria to allow normal business ties with the war-torn country to resume, sanctions on specific individuals and entities in Syria will probably remain in place for years to come to ensure bad actors can't access their frozen assets, according to a former Treasury Department official.
China this week sanctioned two European banks in retaliation for the EU earlier this year designating Chinese financial institutions for doing business with Russia (see 2507180017). The announcement blocks Chinese companies and people from participating in transactions or other "activities" with Lithuanian banks AB Urbo Bankas and AB Mano Banka, the ministry said Aug. 13, according to an unofficial translation.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a new general license this week to authorize certain transactions related to the Trump administration's planned meeting with Russian officials this week in Alaska. General License 125 authorizes transactions that are "ordinarily incident and necessary to the attendance at or support of meetings" between the two countries. Those transactions are authorized through 12:01 a.m. ET on Aug. 20.