A World Trade Organization dispute panel rejected China's claim that its retaliatory tariffs in response to Section 232 tariffs were justified because the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs were a safeguard in disguise.

The State Department this week announced penalties on one person and four entities and their subsidiaries for illegal transfers under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act. The agency in a notice said the parties transferred items subject to multilateral control lists that contribute to weapons proliferation or missile production. The State Department barred them from making certain purchases of items controlled on the U.S. Munitions List and by the Arms Export Control Act and will suspend any current export licenses used by the entities. The agency also will bar them from receiving new export licenses for any goods subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The restrictions will remain in place for two years from the July 19 effective date.

The European Council on July 14 extended by six months the humanitarian exception to its Syria sanctions regime. The exception allows for aid to enter Syria following the February earthquake in Syria and Turkey. The exception, to expire Feb. 24, 2024, also allows international organizations and "certain defined categories of actors involved in humanitarian activities in Syria" to make funds available to sanctioned parties.

The Bureau of Industry and Security recently revoked export privileges for seven people after they illegally exported or tried to export controlled items, including military equipment, firearms and ammunition.

The Bureau of Industry and Security again renewed the temporary denial order for Belavia Belarusian Airlines, Belarus' state-owned national airline. BIS first suspended the export privileges of the airline last June (see 2206160015) and again in December 2212150054), barring it from participating in transactions with items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The agency renewed the denial order for another 180 days on June 7 after finding Belavia continues to illegally operate aircraft subject to the EAR, including for flights between Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

World Trade Organization members decided on new chairpersons for the 14 subsidiary bodies reporting to the Council for Trade in Goods, the WTO announced. The new chairpersons include Turkey's Aysegul Sahinoglu Yerdes for the Committee on Anti-dumping Practices, New Zealand's James Lester for the Committee on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, Finland's Anna Vitie for the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade and Norway's Kjetil Tysdal for the Committee on Agriculture.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned members and affiliates of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the IRGC-Qods Force who have ties to the groups’ terrorist and assasination plots in the U.S. and abroad. The designations target various IRGC officials and associates, along with Rey Havacilik Ithalat Ihracat Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, a Turkey-based airline, for assisting the group’s operations. Brian Nelson, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said they help Iran target “those they deem enemies of the Iranian regime.”

The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body agreed to Indonesia's second bid for a dispute panel on the EU's antidumping and countervailing duties on stainless steel cold-rolled flat products from Indonesia at the May 30 DSB meeting, a Geneva-based trade official emailed reporters this week. Indonesia's first request was denied at a past DSB meeting, prompting the second bid in which the nation said it is entitled to protect its national interests.

Germany charged four managers of spyware company FinFisher with intentionally violating dual-use export controls after they sold surveillance products, without licenses, to countries outside the EU. The managers of the FinFisher group of companies, which were some of the “world's leading” spyware firms before declaring insolvency last year, never “even applied for” export licenses from German authorities and tried to evade detection, Munich’s public prosecutor announced this week, according to an unofficial translation.

The Treasury Department ‘understands” the challenges faced by banks, law firms, companies and others in trying to comply with multiple Russian sanctions regimes across the U.S., the EU and elsewhere, and is working to better align those restrictions to alleviate some headaches, said Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Nelson, speaking during a law conference in Washington last week, said the agency is “working hard” to harmonize “our actions, our targets, the guidance that we're providing so that they are consistent across our jurisdictions.”