Click here to read the full Client Advisory by Steptoe & Johnson LLP. In December 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a revised policy regarding voluntary disclosure of export control and sanctions violations by business organizations (“VSD Policy”).  The VSD Policy encourages business organizations – which now include financial institutions – to self-disclose “all potentially willful violations of the statutes implementing the U.S. government’s primary export control and sanctions regime.” For…

Click here for the Chinese translation of this post. On January 13, 2020, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) published final rules implementing changes to the committee’s jurisdiction and review process as required under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA). The regulations become effective on February 13, 2020. Under the new rules, CFIUS, which is the inter-agency body charged with reviewing certain inbound foreign investment in the…

Click here to sign up for email alerts from Steptoe & Johnson LLP. On January 10, 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) named Beijing-based Pamchel Trading Beijing Co. Ltd., its Seychelles-based affiliate, and a Chinese vessel and vessel operator as Specially Designated Nationals (“SDNs”) pursuant to Executive Order (“E.O.”) 13871 of May 8, 2019, for engaging in significant transactions involving Iran’s metals sectors. OFAC also designated 13 Iranian …

Click here to read the full Client Advisory by Steptoe & Johnson, LLP Beijing. With the coming into effect of the new PRC Encryption Law on January 1, China is moving steadily to develop and implement an encryption regime that protects core state security interests, while allowing businesses that do not implicate state security to create, trade and use encryption relatively freely. Additionally, it appears that restrictions on foreign investment in the encryption sector and…

On December 31, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas threw out a $2 million fine issued in 2017 by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) under the Ukraine-Related Sanctions Regulations (“URSR”), 31 C.F.R. § 589.  The much-awaited opinion held that OFAC did not provide “fair notice” that the URSR prohibited dealing in contracts signed by a sanctioned individual on behalf of a non-sanctioned company, prior…

On November 26, the US Department of Commerce (“DOC”) issued a proposed rule to implement Executive Order 13873 (Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain) that could have far-reaching consequences for certain transactions involving information and communications technology and services (“ICTS”).  The proposed rule covers a wide variety of transactions and would give DOC significant discretion to review, prohibit, or require mitigation for such transactions.  The public comment period,…

On December 26 the State Department will publish a long-awaited rule amending the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) by providing a definition of activities that are not exports, reexports, retransfers, or temporary imports at 22 CFR section 120.54. Notably, this definition provides much-needed guidance on whether and under what circumstances end-to-end encrypted technical data is controlled under the ITAR. Published as an interim final rule, the State Department will accept comments through January 25,…