Last month, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) published updated guidance materials for freight forwarders and exporters and updated their “Don’t Let This Happen to You” guidance document. BIS also published a new resource to help identify boycott-related requests. Updated Guidance BIS issued updated guidance for freight forwarders and exporters who use freight forwarders to help them ensure compliance with US export controls and regulatory requirements. The guidance outlines compliance…
A company’s Russia-bound shipment gets stopped by customs authorities in the UK, which claim the products are prohibited for export to Russia. After confirming that the products are indeed restricted, the company initiates an internal investigation to get to the root cause of the problem and remediate. A whistleblower uses its employer’s compliance hotline to report concerns about possible US, EU, and UK sanctions or export controls violations. The company initiates an internal investigation to…
The leader of Russia’s political opposition, Alexei Navalny, died in a Siberian prison on February 16, just over a week before the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Both Navalny’s death and the anniversary of the invasion were cited as the motivations behind the latest rounds of sanctions against Russia. Members of our global sanctions team in our offices in the US, UK, Sweden, Australia, and Canada summarize the latest…
What happened? On January 17, 2024, the US State Department (“State”) announced the designation of Ansarallah, commonly known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (“SDGT”) pursuant to Executive Order 13224. The designation will be effective on February 16, 2024, at which time the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) will add Ansarallah to the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDN List”). In other words, the designation…