The US House of Representatives passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hr1191enr/pdf/BILLS-114hr1191enr.pdf on May 14, 2015 by a vote of 400 to 25. On May 18, 2015, this legislation was presented to President Obama, who is expected to sign it into law. It requires that any final nuclear deal reached with Iran as part of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran be presented to Congress within 5 calendar days. Parties to the negotiations…
On April 1, 2015, President Obama issued an Executive Order (the “Cyber EO”) authorizing the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) to designate as Specially Designated Nationals (“SDNs”) certain persons that have engaged in “significant malicious cyber-enabled activities.” No party has yet been designated under the Cyber EO. OFAC has stated in its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that the Cyber EO is “intended to address situations where, for jurisdictional or other issues,”…
On 8 March 2015, US President Barack Obama issued a new Executive Order (“Order”) authorizing the imposition of sanctions targeting Venezuela in response to the Venezuelan Government’s erosion of human rights guarantees; persecution of political opponents; curtailment of press freedoms; use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests; arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors; and the exacerbating presence of significant public corruption in the country. According to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, the Order “will be used to protect the US financial system from the illicit financial flows from public corruption in Venezuela” (statement of Secretary Lew on the Order). The Order was issued pursuant to various legal authorities, including the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014 (described in our posts of 16 December and 19 December 2014). The White House has published a Fact Sheet about the Order.
On January 30, 2015, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued three Ukraine-related general licenses authorizing certain transactions relating to Crimea that would otherwise be prohibited under Executive Order 13685. As detailed in our recent post, Executive Order 13685 imposed comprehensive sanctions on the Crimea region of Ukraine and provided the authority for blocking certain persons in connection with the situation in Crimea. Consistent with Executive Order 13685, the US Government…