On January 1, 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (the “NDAA 2021”) was enacted into law after the US Congress voted to override the President’s veto of the bill. The defense budget legislation authorizes $740.5 billion for national defense spending and sets policies on military compensation, procurement of equipment, operations, and training. In addition, similar to most National Defense Authorization Acts in recent years, the NDAA 2021 includes provisions regarding sanctions…
On December 23, 2020, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued a final rule amending the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) by adding a new “Military End User List” (“MEU List”) as supplement no. 7 to part 744 of the EAR. The final rule adds 102 entities to the MEU List, which will consist of Chinese, Russian, and Venezuelan entities that the US Government has determined are “military end users” for purposes…
The Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions List On December 14, 2020, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) published a new Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions List (“NS-MBS List”). The NS-MBS List is not the result of new sanctions but rather is designed as a reference tool to identify persons subject to certain non-blocking menu-based sanctions, including certain sanctions described in Section 235 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (“CAATSA”), as implemented by…
On October 29, 2020, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued a final rule (the “final rule”) amending the license review policy under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) for items controlled for national security (“NS”) reasons when destined to China, Russia, or Venezuela. The amendments add Venezuela to the list of countries to which the policy applies and modify the policy to replace the reference to military capabilities with a new,…