The EU and the U.K. are stepping up Russia sanctions enforcement, mirroring U.S. efforts to increase prosecutions and designations of companies helping Moscow evade trade restrictions, two Europe-based lawyers said this week. They said European countries are increasingly taking steps to expand the extraterritorial reach of their sanctions authorities, warning companies to make sure they’re conducting careful due diligence.
The U.S. should tighten its export controls to prevent Russia from acquiring U.S. technologies through international space cooperation activities, said Benjamin Schmitt, a national security and export control researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Schmitt, speaking during a March 29 event hosted by the Atlantic Council, said the U.S. specifically needs to impose more restrictions around what types of items it shares with Russians in the International Space Station context.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security this week added 11 entities in China, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Russia to the Entity List for various activities that have contributed to human rights abuses, the agency said in a final rule effective March 28. The entities include procurement firms, a police entity and technology and electronics companies, including several subsidiaries of Chinese surveillance company Hikvision, which was added to the Entity List in 2019 (see 2205090014).
The Biden administration this week plans to “unveil” new human rights-related export control measures as part of the second Summit for Democracy, a senior administration official said. The measures will show how the U.S. and its allies have so far implemented the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative, an effort announced at the first democracy summit in 2021 that was designed to lead to better guardrails on exports of surveillance items and other technologies (see 2112090030).
Finland permitted a Russian fertilizer shipment to be shipped through EU territory and exported to a third country to "promote food security," the country said last week. Although EU sanctions don't prohibit imports or the transit of fertilisers from Russia, Finland said it seized the shipment earlier this month because the country suspected it of being owned by a sanctioned Russian person, and member states "must freeze the funds and economic resources owned or controlled by sanctioned individuals." The country's foreign ministry released the shipment after receiving a "request for authorization" from the purchaser. The authorisation was "granted under the condition that the fertilisers are exported to a third country to promote food security," Finland said.
A Washington, D.C., court last week rejected a Russian citizen’s bid to dismiss government accusations that he misled investors about his company’s “key” space technology and several U.S. “adverse national security determinations” against the company. The ruling came after the Securities and Exchange Commission said Mikhail Kokorich, former CEO of space industry startup Momentus, made several “misrepresentations, false statements, and material omissions” in merger discussions with another firm, failing to disclose that the Commerce Department had rejected at least one of his company's export license applications and planned to deny another (SEC v. Mikhail Kokorich, D.D.C. # 21-1869).
The Bureau of Industry and Society’s export enforcement arm is ramping up outreaches to exporters amid a rise in new restrictions against Russia and China, said Christopher Grigg, a former DOJ official. Grigg, now a lawyer with Nixon Peabody, said the agency’s Office of Export Enforcement is contacting more companies to specifically vet their record-keeping procedures.
The U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation removed a duplicate sanctions list entry for Sergey Borisovich Korolev, member of Rosatom's supervisory board, and amended the entry for Alexey Viktorovich Kuzmichev, member of Alfa Group Consortium's supervisory board.
The number of ships carrying sanctioned fuel has increased in recent years, creating a “shadow” fleet of tankers that operate without insurance or oversight, Reuters reported March 23. Industry observers fear the rise in shadow vessels could “undermine decades-long industry efforts to increase shipping safety,” particularly as more vessels turn to carrying sanctioned Russian and Iranian energy shipments. The report tracked at least eight groundings, collisions or near misses involving tankers carrying sanctioned energy products last year, adding that the shadow fleet is estimated to include at least 400 to 600 ships, about a fifth of the total global crude oil tanker fleet.