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On November 17, 2020, OFAC issued Venezuela General License 8G, “Authorizing Transactions Involving Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA) Necessary for the Limited Maintenance of Essential Operations in Venezuela or the Wind Down of Operations in Venezuela for Certain Entities.”  General License 8G extends the pre-existing authorization for US persons to engage in certain transactions and activities involving the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PdVSA through 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time, June 3, 2021, for Chevron, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Weatherford International.  These are some of the most significant petroleum companies with US connections operating in Venezuela.  Aside from extending the expiration date – which had been December 1, 2020 – General License 8G is substantively the same as general License 8F, which it replaces.

Specifically, General License 8G authorizes US persons to engage in transactions and activities “ordinarily incident and necessary to the limited maintenance of essential operations, contracts, or other agreements” for the above-mentioned companies and their subsidiaries that –

  1. are for safety or the preservation of assets in Venezuela;
  2. involve PdVSA or any entity in which PdVSA owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest; and
  3. were in effect prior to July 26, 2019.

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Continue Reading OFAC Issues Updated General License 8G Extending Authorization of Transactions with PdVSA for Five Petroleum Companies

The US Treasury Department, or presumably, its Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), is expected to issue a report by mid-December under Section 5(b) of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (“HKAA”) identifying “foreign financial institutions” (“FFIs”) that have knowingly conducted significant transactions with “foreign persons” previously identified by the US State Department under Section 5(a) of the HKAA on 14 October 2020. FFIs identified in the Section 5(b) Report will face a menu of ten sanctions, ranging from prohibitions on serving as a repository of US government funds to travel bans against corporate officers.

Prior to identification in the Section 5(b) Report and imposition of those sanctions, OFAC “will reach out to an FFI to inquire about its conduct,” according to FAQ 848 issued by OFAC in conjunction with the State Department’s 5(a) report.

While awaiting issuance of the Section 5(b) Report, and in addition to identifying any connection to individuals previously identified by the State Department, FFIs should consider how to respond if they receive an outreach from OFAC. Such an outreach, like any inquiry or request for information from OFAC, must be handled expeditiously and strategically. Inaccuracies or omissions in the response or the failure to respond at all could form the basis of enforcement action separate and apart from the conduct OFAC is reviewing under the HKAA. It will certainly set the tone for interactions with OFAC going forward.

In this note, we provide guidance on how to handle requests from OFAC under the HKAA, and more broadly to other informational outreach, based on our considerable experience in managing similar US government requests for clients in Asia.

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Continue Reading Responding to the US Treasury Department’s Information Requests: The Hong Kong Autonomy Act and Beyond

(For more recent information, see our blog post of January 15, 2021, “Updated: Amended Executive Order Makes Clear US Persons Must Divest Securities of Chinese Military Companies as Defense Department Identifies Nine More Entities.”)

On November 12, 2020, the White House issued an Executive Order (“EO”), “Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies,” which will prohibit US persons from purchasing securities of certain “Communist Chinese military companies,” including 31 companies previously identified by the US Department of Defense (“DoD”) in June and August 2020 (available here and here). The prohibitions in the EO will take effect on January 11, 2021.

Background

The EO, which was issued pursuant to the president’s authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”), declares a national emergency with respect to the “PRC’s military-industrial complex,” which is said to be “directly supporting the efforts of the PRC’s military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses” and threatening the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.

In response to this stated threat, the EO will prohibit US persons from purchasing publicly listed securities of specific “Communist Chinese military companies,” as that term is defined  in Section 1237 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999, as amended (“NDAA 1999”).  Restrictions will go into effect on January 11, 2021 against the 31 companies already identified by DoD, and will take effect 60 days after any subsequent listings by the DoD or the US Department of the Treasury.

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Continue Reading Executive Order Prohibits US Persons from Buying Securities of Chinese Military Companies as of January 11, 2021

In its 2019-2020 Annual Report (the Report), the UK’s sanctions office (the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI)) revealed that, between April 2019 and March 2020, it had received 140 voluntary disclosures of potential sanctions violations related to transactions worth a total of £982 million.  This represents a record number of reports, and an…

On October 14, 2020, the U.S. State Department issued a much-anticipated report pursuant to Section 5(a) of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act (HKAA), identifying ten individuals who were determined by the State Department to be “foreign persons” who “are materially contributing to, have materially contributed to, or attempt to materially contribute to the failure of the PRC to meet its obligations under” the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 or Hong Kong’s Basic Law.

Under Section 5(b) of the HKAA, the U.S. Treasury Department is now given 30 to 60 days to release a report identifying any foreign financial institution (FFI) “that knowingly conducts a significant transaction with a foreign person identified” in the October 14 report. This report could be released by mid-November or December. Within one year of this Section 5(b) report, the Treasury Department could impose secondary sanctions on the FFIs identified therein, based on a menu of 10 sanctions laid out in Section 7 of the HKAA.

In conjunction with the State Department’s report, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued four Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) providing additional guidance on how the agency intends to implement the secondary sanctions.

For additional background on this issue and a description of the secondary sanctions under the HKAA, see our blog post of July 15, 2020, “U.S. Executive Order Implements, Strengthens Hong Kong Sanctions.”

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Continue Reading Update: Hong Kong Financial Institutions Face U.S. Secondary Sanctions after State Department Issues First Report under Hong Kong Autonomy Act

On September 30, 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13953 on “Addressing the Threat to the Domestic Supply Chain from Reliance on Critical Minerals from Foreign Adversaries and Supporting the Domestic Mining and Processing Industries.”

In the Executive Order, the President declared a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, in order to…

On October 6, 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) promulgated a newly expanded licensing policy relating to human rights under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”).  We believe this is an area of increasing regulatory interest on the part of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Congress, and we would expect to see more developments like this in the near future.

On the one hand, the immediate practical impact of this new licensing policy may be limited.  First, it only informs the factors that the U.S. government must consider when deciding whether or not to issue a license under the EAR – it does not impose any new restrictions or licensing obligations in cases when a license previously was not required.  Second, even when the licensing process is triggered, we believe human rights considerations would have often been taken into account before this rule took effect, though perhaps less formally.  On the other hand, this policy change may be more significant for what it says about the direction in which U.S. export controls are heading, and it may come into play in significant ways in certain types of license applications.

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Continue Reading New Human Rights Licensing Policy under U.S. Export Controls – Convergence with the EU?

On September 10, 2020, Judge John Bates of the DC District Court issued a memorandum opinion dismissing a lawsuit against the US Department of Commerce filed by a US-based carrier in June 2019 in response to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) decision to add a major Chinese telecommunications manufacturer and numerous affiliates to the Entity List in May 2019. The carrier argued that the BIS rule infringed on its due process rights because the carrier could be held strictly liable for violations of the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) caused by its customers. It also argued that BIS exceeded its authority under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (“ECRA”).

The Decision

Under the EAR, carriers and other intermediaries can be held liable for facilitating violations of their customers. For example, a carrier that transports US-origin goods to a person on the Entity List who is not licensed to receive those goods could violate the EAR in addition to the sender who initiated the shipment. The carrier in this case had argued that it could not know the contents of every package it transported and that holding it strictly liable for its customers’ violations would not advance US national security or foreign policy goals. It also challenged the rationality of imposing strict liability on common carriers while holding customers liable only if they “knowingly” engage in a prohibited shipment.

The carrier argued that the EAR’s strict liability standard would require the company either to cease all business operations that create a reasonable risk of violating the EAR (e.g., shipping packages to persons on the Entity List) or to “proceed with its business operations and face a substantial risk that it will violate the EAR and suffer harm.”

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Continue Reading Shipping Carrier Sent Packing as Court Rejects Challenge to New US Export Controls Rules

On September 18, 2020, the US Commerce Department announced the prohibited transactions (which would be effective as of September 20, subject to a court-ordered suspension discussed below) aimed at limiting the use of WeChat (and possibly also TikTok) within the United States. These prohibitions may have some effect outside the United States as well. Technology companies, Internet infrastructure companies, financial institutions, and other companies that support these apps should take particular note since the prohibitions are directed at business-to- business engagement, as opposed to individual users of these apps. However, users should consider that their ability to continue to use WeChat in particular within the United States may become severely restricted, and perhaps eventually eliminated. The Commerce Department’s September 18 announcement explains that these prohibitions are intended to “protect users in the U.S. by eliminating access to these applications and significantly reducing their functionality.”

As background, on August 6, President Trump issued Executive Orders 13942 and 13943, directing the Secretary of Commerce to identify, within 45 days, specific types of prohibited transactions related to ByteDance Ltd. (including TikTok) and WeChat. See our earlier blog post for more detail. In two Notifications issued on September 18 (the WeChat notice is available here, and the ByteDance / TikTok notice is here), the Commerce Department identified a broad set of business-to-business transactions involving WeChat and ByteDance / TikTok that would be prohibited under US law.

Importantly, the timing for these prohibitions is different for each of the two Notifications.

  • The WeChat prohibitions were to take effect on September 20. However, they were temporarily blocked by a preliminary injunction issued by a US federal magistrate judge on September 19. The outcome of this litigation remains uncertain.
  • The limited ByteDance / TikTok prohibitions that were slated to take effect on September 20 were suspended by the Commerce Department until September 27 at 11:59 p.m. eastern. In a press release issued after the Notifications themselves, the Commerce Department stated that this delay was provided “in light of recent positive developments . . . at the direction of President Trump.” The effective date of most of the ByteDance / TikTok prohibitions as stated in the Notification is not until November 12, 2020, which would align with the 90-day period for divestment of TikTok in the United States that was ordered by the President on August 14. A proposed divestment or other type of partnership to operate TikTok within the United States is currently under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). President Trump stated that he has given the most recent proposed deal for TikTok his “blessing,” but the CFIUS process is not yet complete; nor has the deal closed. Commerce’s press release states that “the President has provided until November 12 for the national security concerns posed by TikTok to be resolved. If they are, the prohibitions in this order may be lifted.” The Chinese government has also indicated that any such deal would be subject to its approval as well.

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Continue Reading US Commerce Department Identifies Prohibited Transactions Involving WeChat and TikTok

The US Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) announced on September 14 the issuance of five new withhold release orders (WROs) on entities allegedly using forced labor in or from China’s western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The WROs bar the import into the United States of various goods alleged to…