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On December 8, 2020, the United States and Ecuador signed a new Protocol on Trade Rules and Transparency that updates the U.S.-Ecuador Trade and Investment Council Agreement (TIC Agreement).  The Protocol adds four new annexes on (i) Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation, (ii) Good Regulatory Practices, (iii) Anticorruption and (iv) Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.  In…

On December 3, 2020, the Department of Defense (DOD) released the names of four additional “Communist Chinese military companies” operating directly or indirectly in the United States in accordance with the statutory requirement of Section 1237 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 1999, as amended. The companies are:

  • China Construction Technology

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On November 17, 2020, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Venezuela-related General License 8G, “Authorizing Transactions Involving Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) Necessary for the Limited Maintenance of Essential Operations in Venezuela or the Wind Down of Operations in Venezuela for Certain Entities.”  This general license continues to…

On October 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a final rule in the Federal Register amending the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) to remove from the scope of generally authorized remittances any transactions involving “entities or subentities” identified on the U.S. Department of State’s Cuba Restricted…

On October 19, 2020, the United States and Brazil agreed to an updated protocol for the 2011 Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation (ATEC) with three new annexes:  Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation, Good Regulatory Practices, and Anticorruption.  U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the protocol “uses the existing ATEC to establish common standards…

On October 14, 2020, pursuant to the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (HKAA), the State Department submitted to Congress a report identifying foreign persons “who are materially contributing to, have materially contributed to, or attempt to materially contribute to the failure of the People’s Republic of China (China) to meet its obligations under the Sino-British Joint…

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it has issued General License (GL) 5E (Authorizing Certain Transactions Related to the Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. 2020 8.5 Percent Bond on or After January 19, 2021), which continues to delay U.S. persons’ ability to enforce bondholder rights to the CITGO…

On October 1, 2020, the Department of the Treasury issued two related advisories to assist U.S. companies in efforts to combat ransomware scams and attacks. In addition to offering guidance, the advisories note that anti-money laundering and economic sanctions regulations implemented and enforced by Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence may be triggered by…

In a Federal Register notice, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has announced that effective September 22, 2020, it is adding 47 entities to its Entity List after determining these companies and persons to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States. The entities…

On September 1, 2020, the Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a joint advisory to alert persons to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (North Korea) ballistic missile procurement…