On May 8, 2018, President Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) pursuant to which the United States had provided relief from certain direct sanctions and even more secondary sanctions. Following his remarks, the president signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing the Departments of State and the Treasury to “begin reinstating” U.S. nuclear sanctions that had been lifted in connection with JCPOA implementation. Immediately following the…

Venezuela has frequently been in the news lately, not only because of domestic politics, but also because of sanctions and bribery enforcement actions brought by U.S. authorities. In this podcast, Crowell & Moring’s Cari Stinebower, Dalal Hasan, Eduardo Mathison, and Mariana Pendás provide an overview of recent political and enforcement developments in Venezuela and explain what U.S. companies need to know about how these developments could impact business and trade ties with Venezuela. Discussed in this…

On May 23, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the dismissal of a challenge to the U.S. Treasury’s  use of Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act against Andorran bank Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) by the bank’s majority shareholders. The court’s decision provides important support for Treasury’s use of the Section 311 tool, confirming the great difficulties that plaintiffs will face in seeking to challenge, in the United…

On April 14, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld the Treasury Department’s use of Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act to impose “special measures” with respect to Tanzanian Bank FBME, Ltd. The court’s ruling allows the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to proceed with implementing a final rule that prohibits U.S. banks from maintaining correspondent accounts for FBME, and thereby effectively bars it from the U.S. financial…

On May 6, 2016, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released a final rule (the “Final Rule”) requiring banks, brokers or dealers in securities, mutual funds, futures commission merchants, and introducing brokers in commodities (collectively, “covered financial institutions”) to obtain and record beneficial ownership information as part of their anti-money laundering (AML) obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The Final Rule will become effective 60 days after its publication today…