On April 22, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the waivers issued to China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey, which allow them to continue to import Iranian oil after the United States fully reinstated secondary sanctions against Iran last fall, will expire on May 2, 2019 and will not be further extended. Of the countries that received the waivers, known as “Significant Reduction Exemptions” (“SREs”), only China, India, Japan,…

In separate statements on April 17, 2019 coinciding with the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton announced several measures intended to increase pressure on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, in response to corruption, human rights abuses, and political repression in those countries. Most significantly, Secretary Pompeo announced that the U.S. government would permit Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad)…

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS” or the “Committee”) recently publicly announced that it had imposed a $1 million civil monetary penalty against an undisclosed entity for repeated violations of its 2016 mitigation agreement with CFIUS, including failure to establish requisite security policies and to provide adequate reports to the Committee. Companies subject to mitigation agreements with CFIUS should take note. CFIUS has always taken seriously the obligations imposed on a…

On April 8, 2019, the U.S. State Department announced its intent to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”) under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1189.  The designation will take effect upon publication in the Federal Register.  The action marks the first time that the FTO designation authority has been used to target a foreign government agency, although the IRGC, IRGC-Quds Force…

On March 4, 2019, the U.S. State Department announced that, for the first time, it would permit actions under Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-114 (the “Libertad Act”), which authorizes U.S. nationals that own claims to property confiscated by the Cuban government to sue for damages any person who traffics in such property.  The State Department’s determination, which is effective March 19, 2019, is…

On January 28, 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) sanctioned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (“PdVSA”), Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, pursuant to Executive Order (“E.O.”) 13850 for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy, following a determination by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to E.O. 13850 that persons operating in Venezuela’s oil sector may be subject to sanctions.  As a result of the designation, all property and interests…

As 2018 came to a close, U.S. financial regulators continued to pursue anti-money laundering (“AML”) enforcement actions against financial institutions, announcing monetary penalties against and resolutions with three U.S. broker-dealers.  The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) announced on December 17, 2018 that they had issued parallel fines against UBS Financial Services Inc. (“UBSFS”) totaling $14.5 million for willful failures to comply with…