EU Advocate General Laila Medina last week said that the "authentication by a notary of a contract of sale of immovable property owned by a legal person established in Russia" isn't covered by the EU's sanctions provisions on Russia, "as long as the engagement in transactions is allowed for that person under that regulation and the authentication is not supplemented by legal advice."
The Court of International Trade on April 19 remanded the International Trade Commission's affirmative injury finding on oil country tubular goods from Argentina, Mexico, Russia and South Korea. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said it was "unreasonable" for the ITC to view the conditions of competition over a 42-month review period without considering the effects of competition at the end of the period and on the day that it voted, particularly in light of the effect of U.S. sanctions on Russia, imposed over the last four months of the review period. The judge also cited as reasons for the remand the commission's failure to consider contrary evidence of the effects of sanctions on Russian OCTG and the ITC's inclusion of non-subject South Korean imports in its analysis. She upheld the commission's decision to cumulate imports from Argentina and Mexico with goods from Russia and South Korea.
Two officials of an Iraq-based weapons dealer -- Syrian national Mohamad Deiry and Lebanese national Samer Rayya -- were charged with conspiring to ship munitions from the U.S. to Sudan and Iraq without a license, DOJ announced. An indictment, unsealed April 15, alleged the pair violated the Arms Export Control Act and conspired to commit money laundering to advance the "illicit procurement activities."
Israel's Supreme Court earlier this month overturned a lower court decision that ordered Mizrahi Tefahot Bank to transfer a donation Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich sought to make to Israeli humanitarian group ZAKA Search and Rescue, according to Israeli newspaper Globes. The bank refused to process the transaction, which totaled over $213,000, due to the risk of EU and U.K. sanctions being levied against the bank for circumvention of sanctions on Abramovich.
The U.S. last week transferred thousands of weapons and rounds of ammunition to the Ukrainian armed forces that were confiscated from unflagged vessels en route to Yemen from Iran as part of a civil forfeiture action, DOJ announced on April 9. The shipment included "over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, and RPG-7s, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition."
The U.K. High Court of Justice last week said it has jurisdiction to hear a nearly $10 billion dispute between Russian aircraft companies and the owners, lessors and financing banks of those aircraft leased to Russia.
Two Russian nationals living in Florida pleaded guilty this week to conspiring to violate the Export Control Reform Act by illegally shipping aviation technology to Russian end users, DOJ announced April 4.
Latvian citizen Oleg Chistyakov was charged with violating U.S. export laws as part of a scheme to ship "sophisticated avionics equipment" to Russian companies, DOJ announced last week. The agency noted Chistyakov is the third person to be charged in connection to the scheme, which was led by Kansas company KanRus Trading Co.
The U.K. Court of Appeal last week ruled that sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska wasn't in contempt of court for allegedly breaching a commitment to the court that he wouldn't move to procure British Virgin Island-based B-Finance to dispose of his shares of Jersey company EN+ in an arbitration suit.
The EU General Court on March 20 annuled the sanctions listing of former Formula One driver Nikita Mazepin, saying the link between Mazepin and his father -- sanctioned Russian oligarch Dmitry Mazepin -- is insufficient for the driver's listing on the Russia sanctions regime.