The U.K. updated its industry guidance on its Russia maritime services ban and oil price cap, noting the cap will stay under review and will be updated subject to the agreement of the Oil Price Cap Coalition. It also explains that, for the maritime services ban, a person supplying or delivering goods by ship includes a person who owns, controls, charters or operates a ship on which those goods are being carried from or to which those goods are being transferred, the EU Sanctions blog said April 12.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation renewed until Oct. 28 its legal services General License under the Russia sanctions regime (see 2210310020), the EU Sanctions blog reported this week. The renewed license, which was set to expire April 28, will again cap legal fees at $621,000, including value-added taxes, and will cap legal expenses at 5% of legal fees up to $31,000. The renewed license, which the blog said was outlined in a recent "letter to stakeholders" from the government, also clarifies that it is applicable in certain cases in which the "fees and / or expenses may exceed the legal fees and / or expenses caps." The license will not authorize legal fees for "defamation and similar cases," the blog said.
The European Commission updated its Russia sanctions FAQs on "export-related restrictions for dual-use goods and advanced technologies." According to the EU Sanctions blog, the FAQs were amended to show that the restrictions bar transit via the territory of Russia of dual-use goods and technology shipped from the EU. The new FAQs also update the Correlation Table that links prohibited goods with their Combined Nomenclature (CN) commodity codes.
The U.K. amended or corrected two entries under its Russia sanctions list and another under its Cyber sanctions list, according to the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. The entry for Volodymir Vasilyovich Saldo, founder of the Salvation Committee for Peace and Order in Kherson, was amended to add his address. The entry for Vladimir Konstantinovich Markov, manager for Gazprom, had a correction made to his date of birth. Under the Cyber sanctions list, OFSI amended the entry for Vitaliy Nikolayevich Kovalev to clarify use of an alias.
The top executive in the EU, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, told reporters in China that the trade deficit between the EU and China has more than tripled in a decade, and said she told the Chinese president "this trajectory is not sustainable and the underlying structural issues need to be addressed."
The U.K. government and Parliament's Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee officially agreed on an oversight deal last month that will allow lawmakers to scrutinize U.K. foreign investment review decisions. The deal, outlined in a memorandum of understanding first agreed to in 2021, was delayed by “ministerial changes” within the BEIS Committee as well as “lengthy negotiations on the substance,” Linklaters said in a recent client alert.
The European Union’s “disengagement” from Russian energy supplies since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year “has worked faster than we expected,” Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy commissioner, said at an EU-U.S. Energy Council meeting this week. The bloc has been able to reduce its dependence on Russian energy partly by buying more gas from the U.S. -- Simson said the EU “more than doubled” its imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas last year.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries reached a deal on an EU initiative to modernize export credits rules in support of green projects. The agreement will set streamlined terms and conditions so that government-backed export funding "can better meet the needs of exporters in an increasingly competitive landscape, while avoiding market distortions," the EU Directorate-General for Trade said April 3. The deal also will provide more flexible terms to widen the scope of "climate-friendly" transactions. The maximum repayment term will be bumped from 18 years to 22 years for climate-friendly transactions, and "from 8.5 and 10 years to up to 15 years for most other projects." The commission said the change is expected to take effect later this year.
A Swiss court found four executives at Gazprombank's Zurich branch guilty of failing to conduct due diligence before opening bank accounts for Russian cellist and Vladimir Putin associate Sergei Roldugin, the BBC reported. The Zurich District Court ruled that it was clear the millions of Swiss francs held in the accounts from 2014 to 2016 did not belong to Roldugin because he had no income, also finding that the bankers should have asked more about the source of the funds, according to another report by Reuters. The four bankers were fined more than $811,000 in total and suspended for two years.
The European Council carved out a humanitarian exemption to asset-freezing measures under U.N. sanctions regimes. Certain humanitarian actors, including U.N. programs and nongovernmental organizations, can now "engage in transactions with listed individuals and entities without any prior authorisation" if the action is for delivering humanitarian aid, the council said March 31. The council decision applied the exemption to 14 U.N. sanctions regimes "transposed into" EU law.