In the past several days, the US Government has issued a slew of sanctions measures targeting Russia. These represent the first major escalation of sanctions against Russia under the Biden Administration and, according to a White House Fact Sheet , are stated to be in response to Russia’s “harmful foreign activities,” including efforts to undermine free and fair democratic elections and institutions, malicious cyber activities (including the recent SolarWinds incident), transnational corruption, targeting of dissidents…
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the US State Department (“State”), and the US Commerce Department (“Commerce”) issued rules adjusting maximum civil monetary penalties (“CMPs”) under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 (“FCA”), as outlined below. (For additional years of CMPs, see our previous blog post available here.) OFAC CMP Adjustments Under OFAC’s final rule published on March 17, 2021, the adjusted penalties apply to CMPs…
On March 2, 2021, the US Government imposed a series of new measures against Russian Government officials and entities in response to the alleged poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Russian opposition politician Aleksey Navalny. Specifically, the US State Department (“State”) imposed a number of financial sanctions and export restrictions on Russia; the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) within the US Treasury Department designated seven Russian officials to the List of Specially Designated Nationals and…
On September 15, 2020, the Treasury Department published the anticipated final rule modifying the scope of the critical technology filing requirement under the regulations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”). The final rule tracks the proposed rule issued on May 21, 2020 in aligning more closely filing requirements for foreign investments with export licensing requirements. Effective October 15, 2020, filings will be mandatory for foreign investments in US critical technology…