On February 1, 2024, President Biden issued Executive Order 14115 (“EO 14115”) targeting persons involved in activities that threaten the peace, security, and stability in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the UK government announced on 12 February 2024 sanctions on “extremist Israeli settlers” who have committed human rights abuses against Palestinian communities. Pursuant to EO 14115, four individuals were added to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (“SDN List”). Concurrently, the US Treasury Department’s…
The leader of Russia’s political opposition, Alexei Navalny, died in a Siberian prison on February 16, just over a week before the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Both Navalny’s death and the anniversary of the invasion were cited as the motivations behind the latest rounds of sanctions against Russia. Members of our global sanctions team in our offices in the US, UK, Sweden, Australia, and Canada summarize the latest…
Baker McKenzie’s Canadian international trade and customs team is publishing a series of articles reviewing 2023 trade and customs compliance developments and looking ahead to 2024’s burgeoning issues. This article focuses on Canada’s export controls regime. In 2023, we saw enhanced scrutiny at the border, with an uptick in Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) verifications on the control status of exported goods and legislative developments to bring Canada’s export controls regime up to date with…
On January 22, 2024, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia announced an additional round of coordinated sanctions designations of individuals, entities, and aircraft linked to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (“PIJ”). This coordinated action builds on recent joint US-UK and unilateral US designations. Our prior blog post on the October 18, 2023 US designations is available here. US Sanctions On January 22, 2024, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”)…