Author

Yu (Iris) Zhang

Browsing

On January 29, 2024, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls (“OFAC”) revoked General License 43 (“GL 43”), which authorized certain transactions involving CVG Compania General de Mineria de Venezuela CA (“Minerven”). GL 43 was replaced with GL 43A to allow US Persons, through 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time, February 13, 2024, to wind down transactions involving Minerven (and entities it owns 50% or more) that were previously authorized by GL…

On December 22, 2023, the Biden Administration issued a new Executive Order (“EO”) “Taking Additional Steps with Respect to the Russian Federation’s Harmful Activities” (the “December 22 EO”) amending EO 14024 of April 15, 2021 (“Blocking Property With Respect To Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation”) and EO 14068 of March 11, 2022 (“Prohibiting Certain Imports, Exports, and New Investment With Respect to Continued Russian Federation Aggression”). According to a…

On October 17, 2023, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) released two interim final rules (collectively, the “October 2023 IFRs” available here and here) amending the Export Administration Regulations (the “EAR”) to further strengthen export controls on advanced computing items, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and items that can support end uses related to the development and production of supercomputers, advanced-node integrated circuits and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The long-awaited October 2023 IFRs…

On June 27, 2023, the US Departments of State, the Treasury, Labor, Commerce, and Homeland Security, and the United States Agency for International Development issued a joint advisory — the Africa Gold Advisory (“Advisory”) — that (i) highlights the opportunities and specific risks raised by the gold trade across sub-Saharan Africa and (ii) encourages industry participants to adopt and apply strengthened due diligence practices to guard against such risks. The Advisory states that it was…