The Office of Foreign Assets Control amended and reissued the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations and Central African Republic Sanctions Regulations to include more guidance, definitions, general licenses and “other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public,” OFAC said in a pair of notices this week. Effective Sept. 29, the new regulations replace the previous Western Balkans regulations published in 2011 and the CAR regulations published in “abbreviated form” in 2014.
As the Biden administration prepares to issue its long-awaited national security strategy, it’s also hoping to reduce barriers to sharing technology with allies and speed up its foreign military sales program, said Cara Abercrombie, a National Security Council official. Abercrombie, speaking during a Sept. 27 defense industry conference hosted by IDEEA, said she hopes these initiatives lead to more cooperation with allies, particularly as the U.S. and others continue to sanction Russia and send weapons to Ukraine.
The State Department is monitoring whether the U.S. delivery of certain F-35 aircraft -- which were revealed this month to contain certain Chinese components -- violated export controls, senior agency official Mike Miller said. He said the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls is “certainly tracking” the case but declined to say whether the agency will issue any penalties. “As to what compliance actions we may be taking with the company,” Miller said, “I can’t speak to that in specific.”
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation assessed Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Competition Ltd. a fine of more than $32,000 for violating sanctions pertaining to Ukraine, OFSI said in a Sept. 27 report. The penalty pertains to the company's receipt of three payments and 78 wine bottles from a designated entity which were entered into competitions from 2017 to 2020, the total value of which is estimated to be around $4,200. HKIWSC did not make any prior disclosures in the case over these payments and wine, leading to OFSI applying the full penalty amount. The sanctions agency said that it is confident that the company "either knew or had reasonable cause to suspect that it was in breach of those prohibitions."
The U.K. added 92 entries to its Russia sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a Sept. 26 notice. OFSI also amended three listings under the restrictions regime and corrected one more. The additions consist of 89 individuals and three entities, which are Goznak, Russia's passport producer; Ima Consulting; and LLC Commercial Bank - International Settlements Bank. The listed individuals include businesspeople, politicians and bankers. Many employees of Sberbank and Gazprombank were listed, along with individuals appointed to positions in occupied areas of Ukraine.
The U.K. amended one entry under its Libya sanctions regime, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said in a Sept. 26 notice. The entry for Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, Russian funder and former director of the Internet Research Agency and supporter of the Wagner Group, was updated with a change in the spelling of Prigozhin's first name in Russian.
The State Department is seeking comments on an information collection involving requests to change end-user, end-use and “destination of hardware” information and open general licenses, the agency said in a notice this week. Those requests are submitted to the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls before DDTC can approve exports of certain defense goods to parties other than those stated on a license. Comments are due Nov. 28.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week revoked export privileges for three people after they illegally exported controlled firearms and ammunition from the U.S.
Two lawmakers are asking President Joe Biden to determine whether Russia’s imprisonment of opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza constitutes a human rights violation and should be met with sanctions. In a letter to Biden last week, Sens. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said Kara-Murza’s “history of defending and promoting human rights” and his opposition to the war in Ukraine may have led to assassination attempts against him in 2015 and 2017 and to his “current wrongful imprisonment.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Sept. 27 released quarterly reports on certain licensing activities for Iran and Sudan, covering the period from April 2019 through September 2021. The reports provide licensing statistics for exports of agricultural goods, medicine and medical devices to both countries as required by the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000.