The Treasury Department last week released its 2024 money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing risk assessments, highlighting areas where companies can focus compliance resources and help “inform their own risk mitigation strategies.”
U.S. enforcement officials last week continued to warn about upcoming export control penalties, saying they hope those cases encourage companies to devote more resources to their compliance programs.
Cyprus is working to establish a "National Sanctions Implementation Unit" by the end of 2024 after a project manager and a group of experts were appointed to help set up the agency, the Ministry of Finance announced Feb. 5, according to an unofficial translation. The new enforcement body will seek to enforce sanctions laws and boost the existing legislative framework.
Hesai Technology, the largest Chinese lidar company by sales, plans to sue the Pentagon for adding it to a list of companies with ties to China’s military (see 2402010018), the company announced Feb. 8. Hesai was added to the list “without any explanation or justification,” CEO Yifan Li said, calling the U.S. decision “unjust, capricious, and meritless.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking comments, due by April 9, on an information collection related to a request for appointment of a technical advisory committee. The collection describes the functions and responsibilities of the Commerce Department TACs, which "advise the government on proposed revisions to export control lists, licensing procedures, assessments of the foreign availability of controlled products, and export control regulations.”
DOJ this week announced charges involving two illegal technology transfer schemes, which were meant to benefit the Chinese and Iranian governments.
A task force created by the House Foreign Affairs Committee has released a report proposing a series of changes to speed up the delay-prone Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process.
The U.N. Security Council this week amended 85 entries under its ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida sanctions regime. The UNSC updated each entry with language to show they each underwent a sanctions review in October. All 85 entries are still subject to an asset freeze.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned four entities and identified one vessel for violating the price cap on Russian oil. OFAC said they were involved in a “price cap violation scheme” in late 2023 that included making calls at Russian ports.
An investigation by the House Select Committee on China found that five U.S. venture capital firms have invested more than $3 billion in Chinese technology companies, many of which aid China’s military, surveillance apparatus and human rights violations, the committee said on Feb. 8.