On February 21, 2023, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued OFAC Compliance Communique: Guidance on Authorized Transactions Related to Earthquake Relief Efforts in Syria (“Guidance”). The Guidance responds to specific questions OFAC received related to earthquake relief efforts in Syria and explains how to provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people in compliance with US sanctions. The Guidance follows Syria General License 23, issued by OFAC on February…
The G7 announced the creation of a new Enforcement Coordination Mechanism “to bolster compliance and enforcement of our measures and deny Russia the benefit of G7 economies” on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Group of Seven (“G7”) is an intergovernmental forum whose members include the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan, with the European Union as a “non-enumerated” member. As such, Germany, France and Italy are EU Member…
On 22 February 2023, Dutch Customs published a press release on its website indicating that the additional EU sanctions measures against Russia and Belarus will enter into force on 24 February 2023. Although relevant legislative texts have not yet been published, the release suggests that the “tenth package” of EU sanctions against Russia will include: The release further suggests that the EU will impose new sanctions against Belarus, as a result of which “the sanctions…
On January 5, 2023, President Biden signed the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act into law. This law seeks to deter the theft of US intellectual property by non-US actors by threatening to impose economic sanctions on those engaged in trade secrets theft. This law adds to existing measures available under US law, such as criminal prosecution, civil lawsuits, and/or designation to a US restricted parties list such as the Entity List (maintained by the US…