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US State Department

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What happened? On January 17, 2024, the US State Department (“State”) announced the designation of Ansarallah, commonly known as the Houthis, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (“SDGT”) pursuant to Executive Order 13224. The designation will be effective on February 16, 2024, at which time the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) will add Ansarallah to the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDN List”). In other words, the designation…

On August 14, 2023, the US State Department, the Labor Department, and the Commerce Department issued a business advisory (“Business Advisory”) highlighting key risks for companies operating in South Sudan. While it does not impose new legal obligations on companies, the Business Advisory highlights the fact that list-based sanctions remain in force targeting certain South Sudanese persons including designations under the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, and…

On April 27, 2023, the US Department of State (“State”) designated Russia’s Federal Security Service (“FSB”) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization (“IRGC-IO”) pursuant to Executive Order (“EO”) 14078 (Bolstering Efforts To Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals Home), with the result that the IRGC-IO has been added to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (“SDN List”). The IRGC as a whole and FSB were previously designated on the…

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the US Department of State (“State”), the US Department of Commerce (“Commerce”), and the US Department of Energy (“DOE”) issued rules adjusting maximum civil monetary penalties (“CMPs”) under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, as outlined below. (For additional years of CMPs, see our previous blog post available here.) OFAC CMP Adjustments Under OFAC’s final rule issued on January 13,…