On July 26, 2019, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) amended General License (“GL”) 8A and reissued it as GL 8B to extend it until October 25, 2019. GL 8B now has the same expiration date as GL 13B, which was also recently extended.
On June 26, 2019, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) amended Venezuela-related General License 13A (re-issued as General License 13B) to extend its expiration date from July 27, 2019 to October 25, 2019. General License 13B continues to authorize transactions with Nynas AB, which is owned more than 50% by Petróleos de Venezuela SA (“PdVSA”), and any of Nynas AB’s subsidiaries. PdVSA was designated as a Specially Designated National (“SDN”) on January 28, 2019, under Executive Order 13850. Our original blog post regarding the designation of PdVSA is available here. Dealings with entities owned 50% or more by PdVSA are prohibited absent OFAC authorization (i.e., a general or specific license). Our previous blog post regarding the application of US sanctions to certain PdVSA subsidiaries is available here.
In addition, OFAC extended the expiration dates of two general licenses related to GAZ Group (“GAZ”), which was designated as an SDN on April 6, 2018 for being owned or controlled by Oleg Deripaska. Please see our blog post regarding this designation here.
On June 6, 2019, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) amended three Venezuela-related general licenses (re-issued as General License No. 7B, General License No. 8A, and General License 13A) to clarify that these authorizations do not authorize US Persons to engage in transactions or dealings related to the exportation or reexportation of diluents, directly or indirectly, to Venezuela. Such general licenses (“GLs”) were originally issued concurrent with the designation of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (“PdVSA”) as a Specially Designated National (“SDN”) on January 28, 2019, under Executive Order 13850. Our original blog post regarding the designation of PdVSA is available here.
On May 24, 2019, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued a final rule amending the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to (i) remove Venezuela from Country Group B, which affords favorable treatment for certain exports of national security-controlled items, and (ii) add Venezuela to Country Group D:1, which includes countries of national security concern, and to Country Groups D:2, D:3, and D:4, which include countries of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and missile technology concern, respectively. BIS also made other conforming changes to the EAR, including adding (i) nonproliferation column 2 (NP 2) and (ii) chemical and biological weapons column 3 (CB 3) reasons for control for Venezuela. Venezuela had previously been part of Country Group D:5 as a US arms embargoed country, meaning that exports and reexports to Venezuela for items classified under 9×515 and “600 series” ECCNs were already subject to a policy of denial, and Venezuela has been included in the military end-use and end-user control in Section 744.21 of the EAR. BIS noted that the final rule better protects US national security and better aligns the Country Group designations for Venezuela with other EAR national security-related provisions that already apply to Venezuela.