On 31 March 2020, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (“FCO”) announced that the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) had successfully concluded its first transaction. This transaction involved the successful export of medical goods from Europe to Iran, and paves the way for future transactions. In its announcement, the FCO stated: “Now the first transaction is complete, INSTEX and its Iranian counterpart STFI [(Special Trade and Finance Instrument)] will work on more transactions…
On 27 February 2020, the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement (SHTA), a payment mechanism designed to enable humanitarian goods to be delivered to Iran, came into effect. The SHTA was developed by Switzerland in close cooperation with the relevant authorities in the USA and in Iran, as well as with selected Swiss banks and companies. The SHTA is available to Swiss firms only. Following the US’s withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018, and the subsequent…
On October 31, 2019, the US State Department strengthened US secondary sanctions targeting Iran under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 (“IFCA”) (codified at 22 U.S.C. § 8801 et seq.), which dates back to 2013. These new IFCA sanctions target the construction sector in Iran and make sanctionable the export to Iran of certain strategic metals.
A notice (please see here) updating the HM Treasury’s Consolidated List regarding three entities listed under Council Regulation (EU) 267/2012, which imposes financial sanctions against Iran, was published yesterday. This notice removes the asset freeze against the below three Iranian entities, following Judgments of the General Court of the European Union (please see here and here for the relevant judgments): IRISL Club IRISL Multimodal Transport Company Leading Maritime Pte Ltd These three entities were initially listed…