On May 19, 2023, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an amended Directive 4, “Prohibitions Related to Transactions Involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.” The purpose of the amendment…

On May 9, 2023, the Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) published proposed rules (“Proposed Rules”) to amend certain areas in its antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) regulations to “enhance, improve, and strengthen its enforcement of trade remedies.” Interested parties may submit comments by July 10, 2023.

Commerce’s Proposed Rules cover 22 different topics that…

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a Notice announcing the continuing extension of Section 301 tariff exclusions for 81 medical products that were scheduled to expire on May 15, 2023. These extensions come after a 75-day extension in February 2023 when USTR sought public comment on whether further exclusions were necessary…

On May 12, 2023, the plaintiff group in the China Section 301 tariff refund litigation, in response to the recently issued decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) upholding those Section 301 tariffs, formally filed its Notice of Appeal. The appeal will be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…

On May 5, 2023, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued amended Russia-related General License No. 8G extending the authorization to conduct transactions involving Vnesheconombank, Bank Financial Corporation Otkritie, Sovcombank,  Sberbank, VTB Bank, Alfa-Bank, Rosbank, Bank Zenit, Bank Saint-Petersburg, and the Central Bank of Russia that are related to energy…

On May 5, 2023, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Investment Security published in the Federal Register a Proposed Rule that would amend the regulations pertaining to certain transactions by foreign persons involving real estate in the United States pursuant to section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, and implemented…

On May 4, 2023, President Biden signed a new Executive Order, Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons Destabilizing Sudan and Undermining the Goal of a Democratic Transition, stating that the violence taking place in Sudan “is a tragedy” and “must end.”

Finding that the situation in Sudan constitutes an extraordinary threat to U.S. national security…

On April 27, 2023, deputies of the Group of Seven (G7) Enforcement Coordination Mechanism met to discuss the need to increase enforcement of multilateral sanctions and export controls implemented since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in order to deny Russia access to the materials it requires to equip its military and the revenue…

On April 24, 2023, plaintiffs in an ongoing challenge at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit filed a Petition for Rehearing En Banc of their argument that former President Donald Trump improperly imposed additional Section 232 national security tariffs on derivatives of certain imported steel articles. In their petition for consideration by…

To increase disclosures of export violations, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a memorandum on April 18, 2023 “clarifying” its enforcement policy related to voluntary self-disclosures of “significant” possible violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The memo also elaborates upon the policy regarding disclosures of potential EAR violations by…