Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex was fined more than $24 million by the Office of Foreign Assets Control this week for violating U.S. sanctions. OFAC announced the fine alongside a similar penalty by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which fined the company more than $29 million for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. The OFAC and FinCEN settlements are the two agencies’ first parallel enforcement actions, OFAC’s largest-ever virtual currency enforcement action and the agency's largest fine since April 2019.
The Federal Maritime Commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking further refining prohibited practices for demurrage and detention, which is required under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA).
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 31 Chinese entities to its Unverified List last week, including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., a semiconductor firm that U.S. lawmakers for months have urged BIS to add to the more restrictive Entity List. The final rule, which took effect Oct. 7, also removed nine other entities from the UVL and included new guidance on what types of criteria and activities may lead to the transfer of UVL entries to the Entity List.
The Bureau of Industry and Security last week announced a broad set of new export controls it said will restrict China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips and manufacture advanced semiconductors. The controls, outlined in an interim final rule that will take effect in phases, will impose new restrictions on a range of advanced computing semiconductor chips and semiconductor manufacturing items, impose controls on transactions for supercomputer end-uses and certain integrated circuit end-uses, and introduce new restrictions on transactions involving certain entities on the Entity List.
A June joint alert by the Treasury and Commerce departments could signal new government expectations for banking industry sanctions compliance, experts with FTI Consulting said. The alert, which put companies and entities “on notice” about the types of red flags they should be monitoring for potential Russia sanctions and export control evasion tactics (see 2206280056, and 2207130014), may also force some financial institutions to reinforce their compliance and due-diligence processes, they said.
The EU officially imposed its eighth sanctions package on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, the European Council said Oct. 6. The restrictions, which include a price cap related to the maritime transport of Russian oil to third-party countries, were imposed after Russia's illegal annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine. The European Commission welcomed official adoption of the restrictions proposed last week (see 2209290025).
The Bureau of Industry and Security revised how it assesses penalties in settlements involving anti-boycott violations, according to a final rule, which, effective Oct. 7, amends a supplement to the Export Administration Regulations to clarify and change the agency’s guidance on anti-boycott charging practices to allow it to better address more serious violations.
The U.S. should harmonize the sanctions lists kept by the Commerce and Treasury departments to ensure trade and financial restrictions are imposed across the same set of companies, said Keith Krach, a former senior State Department official. Krach said all companies subject to export restrictions on the Entity List also should face strict financial sanctions on Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals List to cut off any U.S. support for sanctioned companies, particularly those in China.
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Michigan-based Thermotron Industries violated U.S. export controls when it shipped a controlled environmental test chamber to South Korea without a license, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in an enforcement order released this week. BIS said Thermotron, an environmental test equipment manufacturer, exported the test chamber in 2012 despite it being subject to missile technology controls and subject to a license requirement under Export Control Classification Number 9B106.