On 6 April 2017, in response to the continued violation of UN resolutions and the threat to international peace and security, the European Council adopted additional sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (“DPRK” or “North Korea“). Our previous blog posts on the sanctions against DPRK are available here and here. Under these new measures, the existing ban on investment in North Korea has been expanded to cover three new sectors, namely, (i) the…
On 1 April 2017, the sanctions-related provisions of the Policing and Crime Act 2017 (the “Act”) came into force, bringing in significant changes to the UK financial sanctions enforcement landscape. As described in our previous blog posts on the subject, the changes brought in by Part 8 of the Act are: A new civil monetary penalties regime under which the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) now has the power to impose civil penalties of…
The Council of the European Union has announced today, on 13 March 2017, that the EU is formally extending their economic sanctions over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine until 15 September 2017. According to the Council’s press release, the assessment of the situation does not justify a change in the sanctions regime. The Council removed two deceased persons from the list of persons and entities subject to these…
On 8 March, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) issued a statement saying that it would no longer allow North Korean banks to access its platform.
The statement by the Brussels based inter-bank messaging system followed a decision by Belgium to withdraw authorisations for transactions with North Korean Banks, which the Belgian foreign ministry stated were prompted by Pyongyang’s increasingly destabilising behaviour and recent missile launches.