Monday, August 16th
- No major development on this day.
Tuesday, August 17th - No major development on this day.
Wednesday, August 18th
- No major development on this day.
Thursday, August 19th
- France added two individuals to its list of sanctions targets. (Here)
- The United States imposed sanctions on three high-ranked Cuban officials for the forth under using Global Magnitsky authority. (Here, Treasury's press release, Department of State press release)
Friday, August 20th
- OFSI added seven individuals to its list of sanction targets. These individuals were all added due to their alleged involvement in the attack against Alexey Navalny in August 2020. (Here)
- The United States also took action in line with the UK by imposing sanctions on those believed to be involved in that attack against Alexey Navalney. The U.S. Treasury added nine individuals and two entities to the SDN list with [NPWMD] tag under E.O. 13382. The U.S. Department of State designated two already-sanctioned entities in Russia pursuant to E.O. 14024 for operating in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation. It also imposed certain import/export restrictions pursuant to CBW Act. (Here, fact sheet, Treasury's press release, Department of State's press release, UK-U.S. joint statement)
- The U.S. President issued a new executive order which empowered the Secretaries of Treasury and State to implement sanctions that were required by PEESA with respect to persons engaged in specified activities for the construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines. Concurrently, OFAC issued a General License permitting certain transactions that are not related to Nord Stream 2 or TurkStream involving Federal State Budgetary Institution Marine Rescue Service. (Here) OFAC also published FAQ 921 to explain the new executive order.
- The U.S. Department of State imposed travel bans (a type of sanctions) on 19 Nicaraguan election officials and political party officials pursuant to section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2021. (Here)
Recommendations of the week
- If you are interested in AML topics take a look at FinCEN recently-published data about SARs filed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 31, 2020. (Here)
- Last week the EU Commission published additional guidance on providing COVID-19-related humanitarian aid in sanctioned environments. You can find it here.
- Last week many expected to see if the anti-sanctions laws of PRC would be incorporated in Hong Kong's laws by Beijing or not. Nothing happened last week. To know more, take a look at this South China Morning Post article.
- Bloomberg reported that the U.S. has frozen nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank. If true, it raises the questions of whether the U.S. government already assumed the Taliban as the owner of those funds and therefore blocked the funds under executive order 13224 authority as amended. Also, relevant to Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of State Directorate of Defense Trade Controls announced that it was reviewing all relevant pending and issued export licenses and other approvals related to Afghanistan. (Here) The UK Export Control Joint Unit amended five general licenses to exclude Afghanistan from them. (Here)
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