On 26 February 2021, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada and the US released a coordinated statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and committing to further restrictive measures, including: Ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system, which facilitates global cross-border financial transfers. The affected banks have not yet been named.Imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways…
On 14 October 2021, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) published its Annual Review, providing an overview of OFSI’s activities in the financial year April 2020 to March 2021. A copy of the Annual Review is available here. Statistics In 2020-2021, OFSI considered 132 reports of potential financial sanctions breaches, a slight decrease from 140 in 2019-2020. However, the number of cases considered generally remains on an upwards trajectory from the 99 potential financial sanctions…
We are pleased to invite you to our Global Year-End Review of Import/Export/Trade Compliance Developments on November 16, 17 and 18. In lieu of our annual conference in Santa Clara, CA, we are excited to again provide a virtual offering available to all our clients and friends worldwide! Please join our international trade compliance lawyers from around the world as they discuss and examine major global legislative, judicial and administrative activities and trends in export controls, trade sanctions, customs compliance,…
On 6 September 2021, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) published its 2021 frozen asset reporting notice (see here). The notice is a reminder that all persons that hold or control funds or economic resources belonging to, owned, held, or controlled by a designated person must provide a report to OFSI with the details of these assets by Friday 15 October 2021. This is part of HM Treasury’s annual review of frozen assets to…