During 2023 both Congress and the Biden Administration repeatedly expressed the need to secure critical supply chains, particularly batteries that rely heavily on lithium and critical minerals sourced from China. Concerns...more
1/31/2024
/ Batteries ,
China ,
Entity List ,
Exports ,
Forced Labor ,
Human Rights ,
Imports ,
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ,
National Security ,
Supply Chain ,
Tax Credits ,
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA)
On June 12, 2022, a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers announced agreement on a new draft of the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act of 2022 (NCCDA), which would establish an expansive outbound review...more
On February 24, 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a final rule effective immediately imposing sweeping export control restrictions against Russia in response to Russia’s...more
3/3/2022
/ Belarus ,
Belarus Sanctions ,
Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
Export Controls ,
Exports ,
General Licenses ,
Licensing Rules ,
Military End Use ,
Russia ,
U.S. Commerce Department ,
Ukraine
Despite months of posturing and growing geopolitical tensions, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this week was a shock to the global community. Western leaders have been swift and unanimous in their response, condemning...more
2/28/2022
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Asset Freeze ,
Biden Administration ,
Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) ,
ECCNs ,
Economic Sanctions ,
EU ,
Executive Orders ,
Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ,
General Licenses ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Russia ,
SDN List ,
UK ,
Ukraine
Initial Global Sanctions on Russia in Response to Events in Eastern Ukraine - In response to President Putin’s televised recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (“DNR” and “LNR”) of Ukraine as “independent”...more
On October 21, 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced an interim final rule (Interim Rule), which will amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to add controls for the...more
On April 15, 2021, the U.S. Government announced broad new sanctions authorities that can be used to target Russia and implemented limitations on dealings in Russian sovereign debt. These measures were imposed pursuant to a...more
U.S. officials have continued to use a range of policy tools to apply pressure on the military leadership of Myanmar (also known as Burma) in response to the military coup in the country and escalating violence against...more
On February 18, 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) entered into a settlement of $507,375 with BitPay, Inc. (BitPay) for violations of multiple U.S. sanctions programs. According to...more
On December 21, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a Military End User (MEU) list to further implement the military end user/end use (MEU) rule defined in Section 744.21 of the Export Administration...more
On December 14, 2020, the U.S. Department of State initiated a series of sanctions pursuant to Section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) that target the Turkish Presidency of Defense...more
On November 12, 2020, President Trump issued an Executive Order (E.O.) prohibiting U.S. persons from engaging in any transaction (defined as a “purchase for value”) of publicly traded securities, or transacting in financial...more
Continuing its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, the United States has (a) ratcheted up sanctions under Executive Orders that provide for the imposition of secondary sanctions on non-U.S. companies that engage in...more
On October 5, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a final rule that imposes new multilateral controls on six “emerging technologies,” agreed during the December 2019 plenary meeting...more
On September 18, 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department published two rules defining the scope of prohibited transactions related to the mobile applications, WeChat and TikTok. The scope of prohibited transactions clarified the...more
On September 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Treasury published a final rule that removes the mandatory declaration requirement for filings to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) based on North...more
On August 11, 2020, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a new guidance document, the Sudan Program and Darfur Sanctions Guidance (“Sudan Guidance”), which clarifies the current...more
On August 17, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) made available for public inspection a final rule expanding restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and its non-U.S. affiliates...more
On July 23, 2020, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 (NDAA) which includes an amendment that expands sanctions in connection with the Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream...more
On August 6, 2020, President Trump issued a pair of executive orders targeting China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. (Tencent) and its mobile application WeChat and ByteDance Ltd. (ByteDance) and its mobile application TikTok. The...more
President Trump signs law authorizing sanctions on individuals and financial institutions and ends U.S. preferential treatment for Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Autonomy Act authorizes sanctions on foreign financial...more
8/5/2020
/ China ,
Defense Production Act ,
Executive Orders ,
Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) ,
Exports ,
Financial Institutions ,
Foreign Financial Institutions (FFI) ,
Hong Kong ,
Hong Kong Autonomy Act (HKAA) ,
Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) ,
Immigration and Nationality Act ,
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) ,
National Security ,
Sanctions ,
U.S. Treasury ,
US Department of State ,
Visas
Since the handover of Hong Kong by the United Kingdom to China in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed separate treatment from the mainland by the United States, other countries and international organizations pursuant to the “one...more
On May 21, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury published a proposed rule that would revise the mandatory declaration requirement for foreign investments involving a U.S. business that produces, designs, tests,...more
On May 15, 2020 the Commerce Department announced an amendment to the direct product rule that further restricts the ability of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and its affiliates on the Entity List, such as HiSilicon...more
On May 1, 2020, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Securing the United States Bulk-Power System” which gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to prohibit certain interests from supplying the U.S....more