Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2678 actions· ✨ 92 recent

OFAC amended 31 CFR Part 539 (Weapons of Mass Destruction Trade Control Regulations) to add Executive Order 13382 (28 June 2005, blocking property of WMD proliferators and their supporters) as an explicit statutory authority for the programme. The rule simultaneously removed Appendix I to Part 539, which had listed foreign persons subject to import measures; all persons previously enumerated in the appendix had already been determined no longer subject to those measures via prior Federal Register publications. Three definitions in Sections 539.301, 539.302, and 539.304 were updated to remove cross-references to the now-deleted appendix. The amendment is purely administrative with no change to the substantive scope of WMD trade-control prohibitions.

FinCEN issued a final rule (86 FR 62914, effective 15 November 2021) amending 31 CFR 1010.370 to align its Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) regulations with statutory amendments to 31 U.S.C. 5326 (Bank Secrecy Act). The principal change extends GTO authority to cover nonfinancial trades or businesses in addition to domestic financial institutions — broadening the pool of entities that FinCEN can subject to heightened transaction-reporting and recordkeeping requirements in a designated geographic area. The rule also updates the notification procedure (directing GTOs to chief executive officers) to conform to the amended statute. No new GTO was issued by this rule; it is a framework update enabling future GTO issuance to a wider class of obligees.