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Grant Leach

Grant focuses his practice on international trade, international compliance, securities, mergers, acquisitions and general corporate matters.

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Today, the Trump Administration announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has updated the U.S. sanctions list of designated individuals and entities involved in the Ukrainian conflict. The announcement was made while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was meeting with President Trump and other officials at the White House.

This action designates 38 individuals and entities under Ukraine-related authorities, thereby blocking access to property these individuals may have in the United States and prohibiting all transactions by U.S. persons involving these individuals.

President Trump today announced changes to U.S.-Cuban sanctions policy which will reverse amendments made by the Obama administration in 2015 and 2016 intended to normalize relations with Cuba. President Trump stated that these changes will include eliminating unsponsored individual travel under the “people-to-people” program and restricting transactions with Cuban military, intelligence and security agencies. The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security have not yet revised their rules to formally implement today’s announced policy changes, however OFAC has provided preliminary FAQ guidance. According to OFAC, today’s announced changes will not become effective until the new regulations are issued.

On Thursday, June 15, 2017, by a vote of 98-2, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill that would potentially impose additional sanctions against Russia and give Congress the power to delay and/or prevent any action by President Trump to lift or relax sanctions against Russia. Tentatively titled the “Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017” (“CRIEEA”), the bill must now proceed to the U.S. House of Representatives for further deliberation and approval.

The Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has taken two unrelated sanctions actions against Iran over the past several days:

SDN Designations in Response to Ballistic Missiles Tests

Effective February 3, 2017, OFAC imposed sanctions against 13 individuals and 12 entities with ties to Iran’s ballistic missile program. OFAC added these individuals and entities to its list of Specially Designated Nationals (the “SDN list”) freezing all  of their assets held in the U.S. and prohibiting persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in trade with the sanctioned individuals and entities. These sanctions also apply to non-U.S. persons on a secondary basis. In a press release, OFAC Acting Director John E. Smith stated “Iran’s continued support for terrorism and development of its ballistic missile program poses a threat to the region, to our partners worldwide, and to the United States” and also added “We will continue to actively apply all available tools, including financial sanctions, to address this behavior.”

As previously reported here, former President Obama in December 2016 issued an amendment to Executive Order (“EO”) 13694, which imposed sanctions on the Russian Federal Security Service (a.k.a Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti and/or FSB) (“FSB”), other Russian entities and officers of those entities. The Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) also placed FSB and those entities and individuals on its list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (the “SDN List”).  These sanctions prohibited persons subject to US jurisdiction from transacting business with the FSB and the other entities and individuals named in EO 13694 and the SDN List designations.

In the last few days of his Administration, President Obama and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) took actions that, on at least a temporary basis, will authorize financial transactions with and most exports of goods and services to Sudan and the Sudanese Government. These actions take effect on Tuesday, January 17, but any U.S. persons seeking to trade with Sudan under the expanded authorizations should be aware that these new authorizations are subject to various conditions and could be revoked or modified based on future actions by the Government of Sudan and/or President-Elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

Yesterday, President Obama issued an amendment to Executive Order 13694 related to malicious cyber activities which imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies (the Federal Security Service and the Main Intelligence Directorate), four individual intelligence agency officers and three Russian vendors that provided cyber support to one of the sanctioned agencies. In an official statement, President Obama explained that the amendment was a response to “the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election.” The amendment also authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sanction any additional individuals or entities determined to be engaged in “tampering with, altering, or causing a misappropriation of information with the purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions.”  The nine individuals and entities named in the E.O. 13694 amendment are now listed on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (the “SDN list”) maintained by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”).  This places a freeze on any property within the U.S. belonging to those individuals or entities and also prohibits persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in trade with the sanctioned individuals and entities.  Shortly thereafter, OFAC exercised its authority under a separate section of E.O. 13694 and added two Russian cyber criminals to the SDN list along with the nine individuals and entities named by President Obama (list found here).

The Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has announced new rules, which will take effect December 23, 2016, amending the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 560 (ITSR). The revised rules expand the scope of medical devices and agricultural commodities that may be exported or re-exported to Iran without specific authorization, pursuant to the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (TSRA).

The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) recently announced additional rule amendments intended to continue improving relations between the United States and Cuba by allowing even greater commerce and humanitarian efforts between the two countries. These new OFAC  and BIS  rules take effect today.  The new amendments build on previous amendments which Husch Blackwell LLP’s Technology Manufacturing & Transportation Industry Insider blog summarized here, here, and here.

Cuba’s Minister of Agriculture, Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero, made an official visit to the U.S. last week together with a delegation of officials from other Cuban ministries.  Minister Rollero’s visit was preceded by a February 2016 visit from Rodrigo Malmierca, Cuba’s Foreign Trade Minister.  These visits marked the first U.S. visits from senior Cuban government officials in over 50 years.  President Obama, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon have also made their own historic visits to Cuba within recent months.  Secretary Vilsack’s visit included a meeting in Havana to sign a Memorandum of Understanding  (the “MOU”) between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture enabling the two agencies to cooperate in fields such as phytosanitary standards, plant and animal sanitation, organic production methods, climatology and irrigation through collaborative efforts such as information exchange and scientific research.