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 November 17, 2020, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) amended General License (“GL”) 8F and re-issued it as General License 8G. GL 8G extends the validity period of certain limited maintenance and wind-down transactions and activities involving Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (“PdVSA”) until June 3, 2021. Our blog posts describing previous amendments to the general license are available here, here, here, and here. Specifically, GL 8G extends the validity period of the authorization…
The Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the case of Lamesa Investments Ltd v Cynergy Bank Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 281 on 30 June 2020. The case appealed a 2019 High Court judgment that found that Cynergy Bank Limited was entitled to refuse to pay interest payments to Lamesa Investments Ltd, under a facility agreement, due to a concern that Cynergy would be subject to US secondary sanctions (please see our previous blog…
On 19 March 2020, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) sanctioned five companies based in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”), pursuant to Executive Order 13846 (“EO 13846”), for their alleged involvement in purchasing hundreds of thousands of metric tons of petroleum products from the National Iranian Oil Company (“NIOC”) for delivery to the UAE. The following UAE-based companies were added to the US Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (“SDN List”):…