The Treasury Department will prioritize most enforcement of its price cap on Russian oil against “willful violators,” a senior agency official stressed this week, reminding industry that due diligence and recordkeeping could significantly mitigate any potential penalties. Elizabeth Rosenberg, Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, said the agency established its safe harbor protocol (see 2211230047) so it can target service providers intentionally looking to support Russia’s oil industry and protect those conducting good-faith sanctions compliance.
Officials from the EU, the U.S., the U.K. and Japan met this week to discuss export controls against Russia and ways to expand existing restrictions to further damage Russia’s economy, said Denis Redonnet, the EU’s chief trade enforcement officer. Redonnet, speaking Dec. 6 at the EU’s annual export control forum, said the bloc used the forum as a backdrop to hold “bilateral, quad collective meetings” to look at “possible additional sanctions measures going forward” and to examine ways the countries can better enforce existing measures.
The U.K. is looking to expand its Russia sanctions to target additional services in a bid to further damage the country’s military and economy, said Ros Lynch, the U.K.’s deputy director for sanctions policy. Lynch, speaking during the EU’s annual export control forum this week, said the U.K. already has imposed restrictions on some legal advisory, engineering and consulting services (see 2210030016) but said more needs to be done, including by other G-7 countries.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is adding 24 companies to the Entity List for participating in a range of illegal exports, including efforts to aid Russia’s military, supply export-controlled items to Iran or support Pakistan’s nuclear activities, the agency said in a final rule released Dec. 7. The additions include entities located in Latvia, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. BIS also removed one company from the Entity List.
The U.K. recently released four general licenses pertaining to its recent price cap on Russian oil. The first license, "Oil Price Cap: Exempt Projects and Countries," permits the supply Russian oil in certain scenarios. One such instance is the supply of Russian oil from the Sakhalin-2 Project from a place in Russia to a place in Japan, which is permitted through Sept. 29.
China has been more receptive to U.S. end-use checks on Chinese entities as a result of a Commerce Department policy change from October, Bureau of Industry and Security Undersecretary Alan Estevez said this week. Estevez also said he doesn’t expect any significant revisions to BIS’s most recent chip restrictions on China, and warned that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would spark new, strict U.S. export controls that would cause U.S. companies to lose “billions” of dollars in Chinese business.
The U.S. and the EU announced new export control initiatives during the Trade and Technology Council’s meetings this week, including a pilot program to better exchange information on dual-use export controls and a new effort to increase research collaboration on quantum technologies. But the U.S. didn’t use the meetings to try to convince European officials to push its firms, such as ASML, to adopt more stringent chip export controls against China, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.
Switzerland has frozen $7.99 billion in Russian assets out of an existing $49.1 billion marked by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the Swiss Federal Council announced. In addition to the nearly $8 billion, Switzerland has also seized 15 properties. SECO said that after the imposition of the Russian sanctions, 123 individuals or entities reported 7,548 business relationships with sanctioned parties, carrying a value of over $49.1 billion. The Federal Council clarified, though, that this number can "not be equated" with the total amount of funds of Russian origin held in Switzerland because Swiss citizens "are exempt from the ban on deposits and the reporting requirement."
The European Commission proposed to EU member states the possibility of using assets frozen under the Russia sanctions regime to compensate Ukraine for damages incurred by the war with Russia, the commission announced Nov. 30.
The Congressional Research Service this week updated its report on U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, outlining the types of designations imposed on the country and policy considerations for the U.S. government and Congress. The report now reflects the Treasury Department’s decision last month to grant Chevron a general license to resume certain oil activities in Venezuela for the first time in years (see 2211280042). CRS said “fluctuations in oil prices also have put pressure on U.S. and European officials to find alternate sources to replace Russian-supplied oil.”