Ian Cohen

The State Department this week announced penalties on two people and three entities and their subsidiaries for illegal transfers under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act. The agency in a notice said the parties transferred items subject to multilateral control lists that contribute to weapons proliferation or missile production. The State Department barred them from making certain purchases of items controlled on the U.S. Munitions List and by the Arms Export Control Act and will suspend any current export licenses. The agency also will bar them from receiving new export licenses for any goods subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The restrictions will remain in place for two years from the Feb. 27 effective date.

The European Council and Parliament reached a deal on a new set of rules to ban imports suspected of being made with forced labor, including how the ban will be enforced and how the bloc will investigate and penalize violations.

The U.S. is hoping to use export controls to better place restrictions around transfers of sensitive technology information, said Bonnie Jenkins, the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security. Jenkins, who is leading the agency’s effort to implement the AUKUS trilateral security partnership between Australia, the U.S. and the U.K., said the three countries need to be diligent about stopping “information getting out.”

The U.S. this week repealed its sanctions authority for Zimbabwe and instead announced new designations under its Global Magnitsky human rights program, part of an effort to highlight the people and entities most responsible for abuses and corruption in the country, the Treasury Department said.

Several companies recently disclosed potential export control or sanctions violations or updated the status of their current disclosures, including several technology businesses, a pharmaceutical company and a cryptocurrency software platform company. The disclosures describe potential violations of U.S. sanctions against several countries -- including Russia, Iran and North Korea -- and one company receiving a no-action letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The State Department fined Boeing $51 million after the company allegedly violated a range of U.S. export controls, including license requirements for exports to China and Russia. The violations, which Boeing voluntarily disclosed, included illegal exports to foreign employees and contractors working in more than 15 countries; a trade compliance specialist fabricating an export license to illegally ship defense items abroad; and violations of the terms and conditions of other export licenses, among other things.

Companies should continue to see more Chinese additions to the U.S. Entity List this year, although Russia sanctions likely will continue to dominate the government’s time and resources, trade lawyers said this week.

The U.S. may need new industry advisory committees to help it implement and maintain its semiconductor export controls against China, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a recent report.

The U.S. needs a more measured and analytics-driven approach to sanctions, export controls and other economic statecraft tools, said Daleep Singh, President Joe Biden’s incoming deputy national security adviser for international economics. He warned about the risks of relying too heavily on new, large-scale sanctions against China and called on the U.S. to create a formal doctrine to guide its use of trade restrictions.

The Group of 7 nations and other U.S. allies should explore ways to seize frozen Russian assets and use that money to help Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said this week.