On 11 February 2025, we saw the first public multi-jurisdictional coordinated sanctions action under the Trump Administration when the United States, Australia, and the UK announced joint sanctions against alleged key members of a Russian cybercrime supply chain. This action was taken by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (“UK FCDO”). See the US…
On January 16, 2025, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued an interim final rule (“IFR”) related to advanced computing integrated circuits (“ICs”) designed to protect US national security and assist foundries and Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (“OSAT”) companies in complying with provisions of the US Export Administrations Regulations (“EAR”). The IFR builds on previous waves of semiconductor export controls published in October 2022, October 2023, April 2024, and December…
On October 9, 2024, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued guidance to financial institutions on best practices for compliance with the US Export Administrations Regulations (“EAR”). The guidance aims to help financial institutions minimize the inadvertent EAR violations, especially under General Prohibition 10 (“GP 10”), which prohibits financing or servicing items subject to the EAR with knowledge that a violation of the EAR has occurred, is about to occur, or…
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has issued an interim final rule to extend OFAC’s recordkeeping requirements for certain transactions from 5 to 10 years. This development mirrors the recent extension of the statute of limitations for civil and criminal violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (“TWEA”) to 10 years. Civil enforcement actions brought by OFAC for violations of IEEPA or…