The U.S. will struggle to compete technologically with China unless it continues to loosen trade barriers around sensitive technologies for a broader range of allies outside just the U.K. and Australia, Mike Gallagher, a former member of Congress, said this week.
Sullivan & Cromwell last week announced that it's creating a national security practice focusing on economic sanctions, anti-money laundering laws, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations, foreign investment regulations, export controls and import restrictions.
Samuel Moss last week left his position as an attorney adviser with the Treasury Department, he announced on LinkedIn. At Treasury since 2019, Moss worked on issues related to sanctions and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. He didn’t say where he would be working next.
Houston residents Muzzamil Zaidi and Asim Mujtaba Naqvi pleaded guilty last week for their role in a scheme to send money to Iran without permission from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, DOJ announced.
A bipartisan group of four House members introduced a bill last week they said would close an export control loophole that has allowed China to access advanced U.S. computing chips remotely.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week removed the Swiss branch of Russia-headquartered bank Sberbank from the agency’s Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List, which lists entities operating in certain sanctioned sectors of the Russian economy. OFAC didn’t release more information.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week launched its new Sanctions List Service, an application the agency will use to issue sanctions list files and data to the public. OFAC said the SLS “provides users with easy access to the most up-to-date Sanctions Lists and Sanctions list data,” including from the Specially Designated Nationals List or the Consolidated non-SDNs List, “ready for immediate download.” Users also can search for sanctions entries on the SDN Lists and other lists maintained by OFAC.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week issued a correction to its April interim final rule that reduced license requirements for exports to Australia and the U.K. as part of the Australia-U.K.-U.S. partnership (see 2404180035). The correction fixes a footnote in the rule to add “greater specificity” for the Export Control Classification Numbers mentioned “so only portions of those 0x5zz ECCNs” that were previously controlled for national security or regional stability reasons for the destinations of Australia and the U.K. “will continue to require a license to Australia and the United Kingdom based on the license requirements specified in this footnote.” The changes took effect May 6.
Senate Democrats are urging the Treasury Department to quickly finalize a proposed rule that could make investment advisers subject to more sanctions-related compliance requirements, adding that the agency should also require advisers to follow rigorous due diligence requirements that currently apply to large banks. But financial industry organizations said Treasury should revise the proposal because investment advisers are already covered by existing anti-money laundering laws and aren’t the right target for new compliance guardrails.
The EU threatened to use its “full spectrum of measures,” including possible sanctions, against Russia for cyberattacks against European infrastructure, according to a statement of EU representatives released May 3 by the Council of the EU. The statement was released after Germany said Russia was behind a cyberattack against various email accounts of the German Social Democratic Party executive.