The Bureau of Industry and Security recently updated its website to allow users to search through the Commerce Control List’s Export Control Classification Numbers by keywords. Users can search keywords across all ECCNs or within just one CCL category.
The Russian grantor of a blocked U.S.-based trust company is suing the Office of Foreign Assets Control, saying OFAC falsely accused the trust of being used to help a Russian oligarch evade sanctions. Kuncha Kerimova, the grantor, said the trust was designed to share her wealth with her grandchildren and other descendants, not to aid designated Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.
The U.K. is open to strengthening enforcement against both British and third-country companies that illegally divert goods to Russia, said Douglas Alexander, the U.K.’s minister for trade policy and economic security.
The Senate Appropriations Committee endorsed a proposal July 10 to urge the Bureau of Industry and Security to create a program to provide financial rewards to those who report illegal exports of advanced semiconductors and AI-enabling chips to “foreign adversaries.”
Adam Szubin, former head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, has joined Covington, where he will work on sanctions, export controls, money laundering and investment security issues. Szubin, who mostly served in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, was most recently a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell.
China is placing new dual-use export restrictions on eight entities based in Taiwan about a month after Taiwan added major Chinese technology companies Huawei and SMIC to its Entity List (see 2506160008).
The Aerospace Industries Association has endorsed two House bills it says would remove unnecessary barriers to defense trade, AIA vice president for international affairs Dak Hardwick said on LinkedIn July 8.
The head of the trade committee in the EU parliament said one of the sticking points in the negotiations with the U.S. is whether 50% tariffs on steel and 25% tariffs on cars and car parts continue to be collected as the two parties move from an agreement in principle to a detailed agreement.
The U.K. on July 7 added two people and one entity to its chemical weapons sanctions list. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation sanctioned Aleksey Rtishchev and Andrei Marchenko, the head and deputy head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Ministry of Defense, respectively. The listed entity is the Joint Stock Co. Federal Scientific and Production Centre Scientific Research Institute of Applied Chemistry, which supplies riot control agent grenades to the Russian military.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed a range of Iran-, Iraq- and Syria-related entries from its Specifically Designated Nationals List this week, including former Iraqi Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi Salih; Syria-based Al-Ra'y Satellite Television Channel; and Swedish Management Co., which was originally designated for moving Iranian petrochemical products, and several of its vessels. OFAC didn't release more information about the removals.