On February 21, 2022, the White House issued a new Executive Order that imposes comprehensive sanctions on the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (“DNR”) and Luhansk People’s Republic (“LNR”) regions of Ukraine. Concurrently with the issuance of the Executive Order, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) published six general licenses (“GLs”) authorizing certain transactions involving the targeted regions. These sanctions were imposed in response to the Russian Government’s decision to recognize the…
On 10 February 2022, the UK Government published amendments to its Russian sanctions programme, enabling it to designate a wide variety of parties “involved in […] obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia”. No new designations have been made at this time, but the UK Government has previously indicated that the powers are intended to be used in response to any Russian incursion into Ukraine. The amendment came into force at 5pm…
The UK Government announced, on 31 January 2022, a planned expansion of the UK’s sanctions regime against Russia in relation to developments concerning Ukraine. Whilst the UK Foreign Secretary noted, in a statement to the House of Commons, that the new measures will amount to “wide ranging sanctions in broad categories”, limited detail has been published, so far, on the scope of the proposed changes. The new sanctions will be introduced as part of…
On 1 November 2021, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) published an updated Charity Sector Guidance and a blog post in response to Afghanistan’s Taliban takeover in August. A copy of the Guidance is available here. The Afghanistan (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 put in place sanctions measures to ensure the UK continues to meet its obligations under the United Nations sanctions regime. While the UK has enforced financial sanctions relating to Afghanistan since…