On August 26, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) published a final rule removing the Syrian Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 542) from the Code of Federal Regulations (“OFAC Final Rule”). This action follows the issuance of Executive Order (“EO”) 14312 on June 30, 2025, which terminated the national emergency declared in EO 13338 and revoked multiple Syria-related sanctions authorities. Our blog post on the issuance of EO…
On August 21, 2025, the European Union and United States unveiled their Framework on an Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade (“Framework”). The Framework follows, and provides further detail to, the July announcement that the European Union and United States had agreed on broad terms of a trade deal. The Framework outlines the key terms of the trade deal that will be negotiated between the parties, and is a first step in a process…
On July 23, the White House unveiled its much-anticipated AI Action Plan, followed the same day by an Executive Order on “Promoting The Export of the American AI Technology Stack.” Following our earlier post considering the Action Plan from a multi-practice standpoint (US AI Vision in Action: What Businesses Need to Know About the White House AI Action Plan – Connect On Tech), this update focuses on the key export control provisions in the Action…
In brief On 14 July 2025, Malaysia’s Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (“MITI”) issued Directive No. 1/2025 (“Directive”), imposing controls on the export, transshipment, and transit of high-performance AI chips. The Directive is issued under Section 12 of the Malaysian Strategic Trade Act 2010 (“STA 2010”), which provides for a “catch-all” control mechanism, allowing MITI to regulate unlisted items where there is knowledge or reasonable belief that they may be used in connection with…