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Last week's major developments in sanctions - March 6th to March 10th, 2023

Monday, March 6

  • The UK's the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation updated its UK Maritime Services Prohibition and Oil Price Cap guidance to include the recent expansion of the restrictions to Russian petroleum products. (Here)

  • The U.S. Department of State imposed travel restrictions on an officer in the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate and his immediate family members pursuant to Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2023 due to his involvement in gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings. (Here) Interestingly, this individual has only been sanctioned by the UK under its Syria sanctions regime.

Tuesday, March 7

  • A day before International Women's Day, the EU Council imposed asset-freeze sanctions on nine individuals and three entities for their role in committing serious human rights violations and abuses, particularly sexual and gender-based violence. (Council Decision, press release)

Wednesday, March 8

Thursday, March 9

  • The Security Council Committee in charge of the UN's sanctions against Iraq removed two entries from its sanctions list. (Here)

  • The UK announced that it alone has frozen more than £18 billion in Russian assets. (Here) This announcement came at the same time as a Global Advisory published by Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force which includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Commission. (Here) The Global Advisory listed a number of typologies of Russian sanctions evasion and provided a couple of recommendations for the "regulated entities."

  • OFAC imposed two tranches of asset-freeze sanctions related to Iran. The first one was against a network of five companies and one individual, all located in China, for supporting Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicle procurement efforts. (Here, the Department of the Treasury press release, the Department of State press release) The second tranche was against a complex web of sanctions evasion which includes more than dozens of entities involved in selling Iranian oil, petrochemicals, and petroleum. (Here, the Department of the Treasury press release)

  • Do you remember INSTEX? Well, it's officially over! The INSTEX shareholders – Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK – have decided to liquidate INSTEX. (The French government announcement)

Friday, March 10

  • There was no major development on this day.

The Recommendation of the Week

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