On September 9, 2019, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued Executive Order 13886 (“EO 13886”), expanding the US counter-terrorism sanctions program by amending Executive Order 13224 (“EO 13224”), which dates to the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. OFAC also designated 28 individuals and entities as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (“SDGTs”) under this new authority and updated various other entries on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List to reflect sanction of those authorities under the same authority. In addition, as described in statements here and here, the State Department implemented the new authority by designating Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Syria, and 12 leaders of SDGT groups (all of which were designated by OFAC on the same day).
Effective August 19, 2019, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) (i) added forty-six (46) additional non-US affiliates of Chinese-headquartered Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (“Huawei”) to the Entity List, and (ii) extended and modified the Temporary General License (“TGL”) authorizing certain transactions involving the export, reexport, and transfer of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to Huawei and its designated non-US affiliates. The extended and modified TGL (“New TGL”) covers the Huawei entities added to the Entity List on May 16, 2019, as well as the ones added on August 19, 2019. The New TGL will be effective through November 18, 2019. As further discussed below, the New TGL (i) mitigates the impact of the Entity List designation by waiving the Entity List restrictions for certain transactions, and (ii) imposes strenuous certification requirements for the use of the New TGL. Please see our blog post on the initial designation of Huawei and its non-US affiliates here and the original TGL here.
On June 24, 2019, the President issued Executive Order 13876, “Imposing Sanctions With Respect To Iran” (“EO 13876”), which specifically imposes sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran (currently, Ayatollah Khamenei) and the Supreme Leader’s Office (“SLO”), authorizes the future designation of persons appointed by, or providing support to, the SLO, and designates certain additional senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard (“IRGC”) commanders. While a politically significant and symbolic move, by itself this latest action is unlikely to have much practical impact, except to increase the risk, yet again, of secondary sanctions for non-US parties (particularly financial institutions) that engage in transactions with the targeted parties.
On June 24, 2019, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) added five Chinese entities to the Entity List: Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Sugon, and its affiliates, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology. The final rule announcing the addition also includes an extensive list of aliases for these entities.