On February 18, 2021, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) entered into a $507, 375 settlement with BitPay, Inc. (“BitPay”) for 2,102 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs. BitPay, a cryptocurrency company offering payment processing solutions for merchants to accept digital currency as payment for goods and services, agreed to
Trade Remedy/Enforcement
CIT Rejects Broad Challenge to Section 232 Tariffs
On February 4, 2021, a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) denied a broad challenge by Universal Steel Products and several other importers (“plaintiffs”) to Section 232 tariffs that former President Donald Trump placed on steel imports. The plaintiffs had challenged both the report by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”)…
OFAC Sanctions Additional Syrian Officials and Entities for Continued Corruption and Human Rights Abuses
On September 30, 2020, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three Syrian individuals and 13 entities, placing them on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List. These persons and entities are associated with the Fourth Division of the Syrian Arab Army, the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and…
President Trump Issues Executive Order to Address Reliance on Imports for Critical Minerals
On September 30, President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) declaring a national emergency to address “the threat posed by our Nation’s undue reliance on critical minerals, in processed or unprocessed form, from foreign adversaries.” In a message to Congress, the president stated that a “strong America cannot be dependent on imports from foreign…
TikTok Files Suit to Prevent U.S. Ban of Its Mobile Application
On August 24, 2020, TikTok Inc. and its Chinese parent, ByteDance, Ltd., filed suit in the Central District of California against President Donald J. Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the U.S. Department of Commerce, in an effort to prevent the government from banning its video-sharing mobile application pursuant to the Executive Order issued…
United States and the European Union Agree to Certain Tariff Reductions
On August 21, 2020, the United States and the European Union (EU) agreed to tariff reductions on several products unrelated to ongoing trade disputes involving Section 232 national security tariffs on aluminum and steel products and retaliatory tariffs under the WTO dispute involving large commercial aircraft. In a Joint Statement issued by the Office of…
Commerce Adds Further Huawei Affiliates to Entity List and Tightens Huawei-Related Direct Product Rule
On August 17, 2020, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a Federal Register notice and Final Rule taking several actions directly impacting Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and its non-U.S. affiliates. Importantly, after issuing and extending a temporary general license since May 2019, BIS removed that license and replaced it…
President Trump Orders Chinese Company ByteDance to Divest Its Holdings in TikTok (formerly Musical.ly)
On August 14, 2020, after an extensive review and unanimous recommendation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order directing that the already completed transaction that resulted in the acquisition of Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd. be unwound. The…
U.S. International Trade Commission Releases Final Report on Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Petitions
On August 10, 2020, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) released its final report on miscellaneous tariff bill petitions it received under the 2016 American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act (AMCA).
As required by the AMCA, the USITC submitted the report to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee…
President Trump Issues Executive Orders Prohibiting Transactions Related to TikTok and WeChat
On August 6, 2020, President Donald Trump issued two executive orders which will ban certain transactions with China-based mobile applications TikTok and WeChat. Both orders note that additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain declared in Executive Order 13873…