The U.S. last week removed sanctions from the son of a convicted war criminal about six months after he, his sister and mother sued the Treasury Department for taking too long to adjudicate their delisting requests.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
The European Commission last week said it plans to propose new foreign direct investment screening regulations by January, adding that it wants to “make better use of existing tools” to screen investments that may pose national security risks.
Although Dutch semiconductor equipment company ASML doesn’t expect the new U.S. export controls on China to have a “material effect” on the firm's financial outlook for 2023, it's preparing for the new rules to restrict more sales of its chipmaking equipment.
The Commerce Department’s long-awaited routed export rule continues to face delays due to a lack of agency resources and attention, said Gerry Horner, chief of the Census Bureau’s Trade Regulations Branch. Horner said both Census and the Bureau of Industry and Security currently “just don't have the resources” to make progress on the effort.
The Treasury Department issued four new general licenses this week to suspend certain sanctions on Venezuela after the country's government and opposition formally agreed to work together on conditions for the next presidential election. The general licenses authorize certain transactions involving Venezuela's oil, gas and gold sectors and remove a trading ban on certain Venezuelan sovereign bonds and the debt and equity involving Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), the country’s state-owned energy company. Treasury issued new guidance to explain the changes.
The U.S. updated chip export controls announced this week will affect a number of chips marketed by Nvidia, the American semiconductor firm confirmed this week. Nvidia said it will face new license requirements for any of its integrated circuits exceeding certain performance thresholds -- including its A100, A800, H100, H800, L40, L40S and RTX 4090 -- along with any existing system that incorporates one or more of those integrated circuits, including potentially future products developed by the company.
The U.S. this week sanctioned 11 people, eight entities and one vessel with ties to Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs. The Treasury, Commerce and State departments, along with DOJ, also published a new advisory to alert global companies about Iran’s ballistic missile procurement activities.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 13 Chinese entities to the Entity List that are involved in developing advanced computing semiconductors that may be used for activities that threaten U.S. national security, the agency announced this week. Each of the entities will be subject to license requirements for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations, including BIS foreign direct product rule restrictions. Licenses will be reviewed under a presumption of denial.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week released a range of updates to its Oct. 7, 2022, China chip controls, unveiling two rules that will impose new license requirements on additional chips and chipmaking tools, make revisions to its U.S. persons restrictions, expand licensing requirements for exports of certain chipmaking items to U.S. arms-embargoed countries, create a new notification requirement and introduce other measures to address export control circumvention risks.
The U.S. has little room to expand sanctions against Hamas, but it could look to track down and designate additional front companies the terror group uses to fund its activities, said Jason Prince, former chief counsel at the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Although OFAC has general licenses in place to authorize a broad range of humanitarian-related transactions involving Palestine, Hamas’ designation as a foreign terrorist organization could make some financial institutions less willing to approve those aid-related transactions, Prince said.