Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took additional action to target shipments of Iranian commodities undertaken by the network of Iran-based, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF)-backed Houthi financial facilitator Sa’id al-Jamal. The most recent action targets two Hong Kong- and Marshall Islands-based ship owners and two vessels for their role in shipping commodities on behalf of al-Jamal, and follows a February 27 action targeting a related vessel, the ARTURA.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two individuals and five entities associated with the Intellexa Consortium for their role in developing, operating, and distributing commercial spyware technology used to target Americans, including U.S. government officials, journalists, and policy experts. Since its founding in 2019, the Intellexa Consortium has acted as a marketing label for a variety of offensive cyber companies that offer commercial spyware and surveillance tools to enable targeted and mass surveillance campaigns.
Treasury is designating three entities and eleven individuals, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, Brigadier General (Retired) Walter Tapfumaneyi, and …
A federal criminal complaint was unsealed Monday charging two men with conspiring to purchase and illegally export millions of dollars’ worth of fully automatic rifles, grenade launchers, Stinger missile systems, hand grenades, sniper rifles, ammunition, and other export-controlled items from the United States to South Sudan, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA).
Despite a board of directors rich with boldfaced Washington names, Lexmark parent Ninestar corporation appears unlikely to break free of its designation as an employer of modern slavery under the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act. Last week Judge Gary Katzmann denied Ninestar’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction staying the Listing Decision.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced two bipartisan pieces of legislation today to protect Americans’ data and national security against foreign adversaries. Both bills were advanced to the House Floor with unanimous support.
A federal grand jury indicted a Chinese national, charging him with four counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary information related to artificial intelligence (AI) technology. According to the indictment, returned on March 5, Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, 38, a national of the People’s Republic of China and resident of Newark, California, transferred sensitive Google trade secrets and other confidential information from Google’s network to his personal account while secretly affiliating himself with PRC-based companies in the AI industry. Ding was arrested March 6th.
A California fashion company executive was sentenced today to 48 months in federal prison for undervaluing imported garments in a scheme to avoid paying millions of dollars in customs duties. The Executive's company, Ghacham Inc., which does business under the “Platini” brand name, imported clothing from China and submitted fraudulent invoices to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that undervalued the shipments, allowing the company to avoid paying the full amounts of tariffs owed on the imports.
EXIM reviews over the last few years indicate that critical minerals are a crucial component of multiple transformational export areas—and the U.S. lags the PRC in the proven reserves, mining, …
As announced in the Federal Register , the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will hold a public symposium on artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property on March 27 at 10 …
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two companies - one in Russia and one in the Central African Republic (CAR) - for their efforts in advancing Russia’s malign …
Following the conclusion of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) Principals’ meeting in Toronto, member states announced the formation of a graphite working group, the inclusion of Estonia in the membership, and reviewed progress of the partnership to responsibly develop critical minerals projects.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) Thursday published a notice in the Federal Register seeking input to inform the development of trade and investment policy initiatives that promote supply chain resilience. The notice seeks information on developing sector-specific policy tools, strengthening domestic manufacturing and services, collaborating with like-minded trading partners and allies, and measuring resilience, among other topics.
The United States hosted a meeting of the Finance Track of the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity on the sidelines of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Annual Meetings in Punta …
House Republican leaders have sent a letter to Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), the dominant supplier of port cargo cranes, demanding answers regarding findings of the Committees’ joint investigation into the operation of ZPMC-manufactured cranes at U.S. ports. The letter details concerns related to cellular modems discovered on ship-to-shore (STS) crane components at a U.S. seaport and a cellular modem discovered in another U.S. seaport’s server room that houses STS cranes’ firewall and networking equipment.
A Russian national based in Hong Kong pleaded guilty to money laundering and smuggling charges for illicitly procuring dual-use, military-grade microelectronics for export to Russia, Members of the conspiracy procured these sensitive microelectronics by falsely representing to the U.S. distributors (who, in turn, are required to report to U.S. agencies) that the Hong Kong shell entity was sending the shipments to end users located in China, Hong Kong, and other countries outside of Russia for use in electron microscopes for medical research. In reality, the OLED micro-displays were destined for end users in Russia.
The Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, have issued a Tri-Seal Compliance Note: Obligations of foreign-based persons to comply with U.S. sanctions and export control laws. The Note highlights the applicability of U.S. sanctions and export control laws to persons and entities located abroad, as well as the enforcement mechanisms that are available for the U.S. government to hold non-U.S. persons accountable for violations of such laws, including criminal prosecution.
Beleaguered Swedish telecoms maker Ericsson has shaken up its compliance operation once again, naming Becky Rohr, current head of investigations, head of compliance as well. Jan Sprafke, appointed compliance chief six months ago, will be leaving the company. Ms. Rohr was previously Vice President, Anti-Corruption and Global Trade, Ethics & Compliance Office at Hewlett Packard, and held numerous roles in civil and criminal fraud prosecution in the Justice Department. She will keep her office in Washington, DC.
House Republicans introduced a sweeping bill of anti-China actions including academic, investment, procurement and trade restrictions, as well as tax breaks and increased spending on economic statecraft and IP protecction. A grab bag of longstanding China Hawk demands, the 72 page bill contains the collective wish list, the sweepings if you may, from a session of inaction by house leadership on substantive China legislation.
The World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference failed to deliver outcomes in agriculture, particularly the permanent solution for public stockholding programs for food security and domestic support work program, as well as on fisheries subsidies for addressing overcapacity and overfishing caused by large-scale subsidizers depleting global fish stocks. Trade ministers, however, approved the extension of the e-commerce moratorium and some improvements in the special and differential treatment provisions, including for countries graduating from their current least-developed country status, our correspondent writes.
