The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 companies for facilitating the sale of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum products. The companies facilitated sales to East Asian buyers on behalf of Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial, Triliance Petrochemical, and the National Iranian Oil Co., which are all previously sanctioned entities, OFAC said in a Nov. 17 news release. The action is the fifth round of designations targeting Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical trade since June, OFAC said.
Canada this week announced another set of sanctions against Iran for its “ongoing gross and systematic human rights violations,” targeting six people and two entities. The sanctioned entities are Shahed Aviation Industries, a weapons research, development and manufacturing firm, and Qods Aviation Industries, a state-owned drone manufacturing company. The country also sanctioned several military and police force officials: Seyyed Yahya Safavi, Seyyed Hojatollah Qureishi, Saeed Aghajani, Ali Azadi, Abbas Abdi and Seyyed Ali Saffari.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s new Unverified List policies, which allow the agency to move a company from the UVL to the Entity List if it can’t complete an end-use check within 60 days, likely will lead to an uptick in companies added to the Entity List, said Nazak Nikahtar, former acting BIS undersecretary. Nikakhtar said she believes many Chinese companies added to the UVL won’t participate in an end-use check that meets the U.S.’s standards.
The U.K. this week ordered a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology to divest from Britain's largest microchip facility, Nexperia Newport (formerly Newport Wafer Lab), several months after U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to intervene in the acquisition. The U.K.’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s decision will force Wingtech’s subsidiary, Netherlands-based Nexperia, to sell at least 86% of its stake in Nexperia Newport “within a specified period and by following a specified process.” Nexperia acquired the stake in then Newport Wafer Lab in 2021.
The G-20 this week said countries should avoid introducing food export restrictions that are inconsistent with World Trade Organization rules and stressed the importance of keeping food supply chains running. In a joint statement after their meetings in Indonesia, leaders of the G-20 nations said they are committed to keeping food supply chains “functioning under challenging circumstances.”
The State Department sent a final rule for interagency review Nov. 15 to further reorganize the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The rule would reorganize ITAR part 120 to consolidate all definitions into one part and “organize the definitions in a manner that enhances their clarity and ease of use,” the agency said. The agency's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in March issued the first in a series of rules expected to reorganize the ITAR (see 2203220013).
The Drug Enforcement Administration is listing amineptine, a synthetic tricyclic antidepressant with central nervous system (CNS) stimulating properties, under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, it said in a notice released Nov. 16. “This action imposes the regulatory controls and administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions applicable to schedule I controlled substances on persons who handle (manufacture, distribute, reverse distribute, import, export, engage in research, conduct instructional activities or chemical analysis with, or possess), or propose to handle, amineptine," DEA said. The listing takes effect Dec. 19.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned six senior employees of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, an Iranian state-controlled media organization that has broadcast “hundreds of forced confessions” of detainees in Iran. The IRIB was designated in 2013 for acting as a “critical tool in the Iranian government’s mass suppression and censorship campaign against its own people,” OFAC said. The latest designations target IRIB employees Ali Rezvani, Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour, Peyman Jebelli, Mohsen Bormahani, Ahmad Noroozi and Yousef Pouranvari.
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Companies should expect “robust enforcement” from the Bureau of Industry and Security surrounding its new China-related chip controls (see 2211010042 and 2210070049), which could include more end-use checks and additions to the Entity List, said Stephenie Gosnell Handler, a Gibson Dunn trade lawyer, speaking during a webinar hosted by the law firm this week. She said companies should “ensure their red flag indicators are up to date and are being vetted appropriately.”