On 8 June 2021, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products issued a press release announcing the results of Operation PANGEA XIV. The release said in part: Authorities worldwide have been checking for criminal online sales of medicines in a coordinated operation: The week from 18 to 25 May saw a coordinated worldwide campaign against the illegal online trade in medicines. For years, this market has been dominated by erectile stimulants. Some 90% of the shipments…
On May 28, 2021, the Biden Administration issued a press release confirming the re-imposition of sanctions on certain Belarusian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) (presaged by the issuance of wind down Belarus General License 2H on April 19, 2021) and suspending the application of the 2019 US-Belarus Air Services Agreement (“2019 USB Agreement”) in response to the Belarusian government’s apparent forced diversion of a commercial flight to Minsk on May 23. The Press Release also indicates additional sanctions targeting Belarusian government…
On June 1, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published the Burma Sanctions Regulations at 31 C.F.R. Part 525 (the “BSR”) to implement Executive Order 14014, “Blocking Property With Respect to the Situation in Burma” (“EO 14014”). EO 14014 imposed sanctions on certain Burmese parties in response to the Burmese military’s coup against the democratically elected civilian government. The BSR do not expand upon the sanctions previously imposed under EO 14014, but…
In the midst of the COVID-19 situation in Thailand, a new Ministerial Regulation (Ministerial Regulation (No. 2) B.E. 2564 (2021)) sets a temporary measure during the period of 1 June to 30 September 2021 to reduce the duty surcharge rate to 0.25% per month for all importers and exporters who voluntarily disclose their errors by themselves and pay additional duty to Thai Customs. Under Customs Act, B.E. 2560 (2017), importers or exporters who fail to…
On June 2, 2021, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai announced the conclusion of the one-year Section 301 investigations of Digital Service Taxes (DSTs) adopted by Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The final determination in those investigations is to impose additional tariffs of 25% on certain goods (specified in Annex A to each notice) from these countries, while suspending the tariffs for up to 180 days to provide additional time…
The scope of the two Open General Export Licences (OGEL) for security items has been further refined and amendments to the OGELs were on Wednesday (26 May 2021) published by the Department for International Trade in a Notice to Exporters. The updated OGELs permit the export of low risk information security items that rely on encryption technologies listed in Schedule 1 to each OGEL. The new Information Security OGELs cover a significantly wider range of items than the…
On May 18, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 1B, “Authorizing Transactions Involving Securities of Certain Communist Chinese Military Companies,” (“GL 1B”) in relation to OFAC’s Communist Chinese Military Companies (CCMCs) sanctions program as implemented pursuant to Executive Order 13959 (EO 13959) and amended by Executive Order 13974. Our blog posts on EO 13959 and OFAC’s prior guidance on the CCMC sanctions program are available here and here. As with the original…
On May 27, 2021 the Department of State published in the Federal Register a proposed rule [Public Notice: 11406] that would update the definition of regular employee in section 120.39 of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to allow subject persons to work remotely, and to clarify the contractual relationships that meet the definition of regular employee. Comments are due on or before July 26, 2021.
News in brief Foreign Internet sites, web-pages, information systems and programs aimed at Russian audiences may be required to open local offices in accordance with a draft law being considered by the Russian parliament.The new rules (contained in a draft law that was presented to the State Duma on 21 May 2021) will apply to foreign companies or individuals if their daily audience in Russia is more than 500 thousand users, provided they meet one of…
On 16 May 2021, the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council (CTC) issued Circular [2021] No. 5 to extend the effective period for the second product exclusion list for the second batch of US products subject to Chinese retaliatory tariffs from 19 May 2021 to 25 December 2021. Click here to see the announcement. The exclusion list covers 79 products in total, including certain industrial chemicals, textiles, metals, electric…