Last week, the G7 foreign ministers met on the island of Capri in Italy, which is currently serving in the role of the G7 Presidency. As one of the only law firms with offices and sanctions experts in every G7 country, we watched the meeting with great interest to see how the G7 will be approaching sanctions in the near future. We wanted to flag two quick takeaways from the statements coming out of the…
On Saturday, April 20, 2024, after months of negotiations and many twists and turns, the US House of Representatives passed the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act (H.R. 8038). This bill, which is the fourth pillar of a broader foreign aid package to assist Israel, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific, contains numerous sanctions and trade-related national security measures. After each of the four foreign security bills were passed on Saturday, they were combined into one package…
On March 8, 2024, the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced further amendments to the Special Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations (the “Regulations”). These amendments list an additional two individuals in Schedule 1 of the Regulations. The announcement was released on International Women’s Day, signalling Canada’s focus on targeting human rights violations of women and girls. The sanctioned individuals are Masoud Dorosti, the Chief Executive of the Tehran metro system, and Zohreh Elahian, a senior parliamentarian in…
The UK, France and Germany (the European signatories to the Joint Collective Plan of Action (“JCPOA”) nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, referred to as the “E3”) have decided to retain certain sanctions previously imposed upon Iran. The press release published by the E3 announcing this decision is available here. The JCPOA was agreed in 2015 between the E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the EU’s…