45 UK MPs and peers have signed a letter dated 18 March 2020 calling on Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, to ensure that the current UK Magnitsky legislation imposes sanctions on kleptocrats and corrupt oligarchs as well as on those who violate human rights. Their principal motivation stems from the fact that currently the UK’s stance falls short of the US’s Global Magnitsky Act and its various iterations in other jurisdictions. Whilst the Global Magnitsky Act…

From Monday 23 March 2020 until further notice, OFSI is recommending that all queries be sent to the OFSI mailbox (OFSI@hmtreasury.gov.uk) instead of the helpline where possible, with clear indications and explanations of urgency. OFSI has stressed that licence applications and compliance reports will continue to be assessed and communications sent, including requests for information on individual cases, but noted that they may not be able to respond in line with their usual timescales. Urgent…

What has changed? On March 11, 2020, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (“CECC”) announced new proposed legislation, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, co-sponsored by the chairs of the CECC, Rep. Jim McGovern (D – MA) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R – FL), targeting supply chains linked to forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would establish a rebuttable presumption that all labor occurring in Xinjiang,…

On 20 March 2020, the Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) of the Department for International Trade published a Notice to exporters 2020/08: coronavirus (COVID-19) – export licence handling. The notice states that the ECJU is taking measures to ensure minimum disruption to the export licence application process, as well as to the advice they provide. The ECJU has identified processing applications for strategic export licences as a business-critical operation for the Department for International Trade…