Baker McKenzie’s Global Compliance News Blog published “Multijurisdictional: 2021 Virtual Global Trade Conference,” which can be viewed here.
On June 17, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued three pandemic-related general licenses (“GLs“) authorizing certain transactions and activities through June 16, 2022, involving Syria, Venezuela, Iran, or certain blocked entities in these countries. The new GLs are Syria General License No. 21, Venezuela General License No. 39, and Iran General License N, and they authorize certain transactions and activities related to the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of COVID-19 (including research or…
On April 12, 2021, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued four amended Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) related to submissions made pursuant to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (“TSRA”), as well as the Sudan Program and Darfur Sanctions. We summarize these FAQs below. FAQs Concerning TSRA FAQs 97 and 98 clarify the process for obtaining a TSRA license, as follows: FAQ 97 provides that OFAC only accepts license applications submitted online…
On March 29, 2021, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule (“Final Rule”) implementing changes to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) that were agreed to at the December 2019 Wassenaar Arrangement Plenary meeting. Specifically, the Final Rule modified the reporting and self-classification requirements for exports of most mass-market encryption items and the email notification requirement for exports of publicly available encryption source code and beta test software. The…
On April 9, 2021, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule (“Final Rule”) in the Federal Register to add seven Chinese parties (together, the “Designees”) to the Entity List. The Final Rule took effect on April 8, 2021. According to the Final Rule and the Commerce Department’s press release, the Designees were added to the Entity List because they have procured US-origin items for use in building supercomputers that are used to support…
On March 2, 2021, the US Government imposed a series of new measures against Russian Government officials and entities in response to the alleged poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Russian opposition politician Aleksey Navalny. Specifically, the US State Department (State) imposed a number of financial sanctions and export restrictions on Russia; the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) within the US Treasury Department designated seven Russian officials to the List of Specially Designated Nationals and…
On January 15, 2021, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an interim final rule (“Rule”) amending various provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement certain provisions of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA). Among other things further outlined below, the Rule imposes new restrictions on specific activities of US persons. By way of brief background, the EAR generally controls transactions involving US origin items (i.e., goods, software, technology) regardless of whether…
On January 19, 2021, then President Trump issued Executive Order 13984 (“EO 13984”), “Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities” which amends and expands Executive Order 13694 of April 1, 2015, to detect and deter the use of US infrastructure as a service (“IaaS”) products by foreign malicious cyber actors. Specifically, EO 13984 directs the US Department of Commerce (Commerce) to (i) issue regulations to detect and deter the…
On January 1, 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (the “NDAA 2021”) was enacted into law after the US Congress voted to override the President’s veto of the bill. The defense budget legislation authorizes $740.5 billion for national defense spending and sets policies on military compensation, procurement of equipment, operations, and training. In addition, similar to most National Defense Authorization Acts in recent years, the NDAA 2021 includes provisions regarding sanctions and export…
On December 28, 2020, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued a final rule amending the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to revise the Country Group designations for Ukraine, Mexico, and Cyprus. BIS has placed these countries’ into more permissive Country Groups due to these countries’ membership in multilateral export control regimes, as well as national security interests and policies compatible with those of the United States. The impact of these changes is…