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The Shandong Provincial Department of Finance issued Lu Cai Ban Fa [2025] No. 8 (鲁财办发〔2025〕8号), "Several Fiscal Policies to Further Support the High-Quality Development of the Private Economy" (进一步 支持民营经济高质量发展若干财政政策), on 2025-06-09 (published 2025-06-11), effective on issuance through 2027. The package bundles 50 numbered measures across ten categories — technology innovation, digital/smart transformation, industrial upgrading, services, foreign trade, talent attraction, financing channels, government-procurement fairness, overdue-payment relief, and policy-delivery efficiency — targeted at private enterprises operating in Shandong.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated more than 35 individuals and entities tied to Iranian brothers Mansour, Nasser, and Fazlolah Zarringhalam, whom OFAC says have collectively laundered billions of dollars through the international financial system using Iranian exchange houses (including Zarrin Ghalam, GCM Exchange, and Berelian Exchange) and foreign front companies based in the UAE and Hong Kong. The network is used to move revenue from Iranian oil and petrochemical sales that fund the regime's nuclear and missile programs and terrorist proxies. The action, taken pursuant to Executive Order 13902, is the first designation round under National Security Presidential Memorandum 2's "maximum pressure" campaign since its February 4, 2025 issuance; Treasury's FinCEN concurrently issued an updated advisory on Iranian shadow-banking and oil-smuggling red flags for financial institutions.

The Hong Kong Legislative Council passed the Stablecoins Ordinance (Cap. 656) on 21 May 2025 (third reading), brought into operation by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury on 1 August 2025. The Ordinance introduces a mandatory licensing regime administered by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) for any person who issues a fiat-referenced stablecoin (FRS) in Hong Kong, issues an HKD-pegged stablecoin anywhere in the world, or actively markets such issuance to the Hong Kong public. Key requirements include minimum HK$25 million paid-up capital, segregated pools of high-quality liquid reserve assets fully backing circulating supply, mandatory redemption-at-par rights for holders, AML/CFT controls, and broad HKMA enforcement powers including licence suspension, revocation, and financial penalties. A six-month transitional period for existing operators expires 31 January 2026.

On 20 May 2025, the Council of the European Union adopted the 17th package of restrictive measures against Russia, anchored by Council Regulation (EU) 2025/932 amending Regulation 833/2014 (sectoral measures) and Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/933 implementing Regulation 269/2014 (asset-freeze listings). Sectoral measures include the largest single-package expansion of the shadow-fleet port-access ban (additional vessel listings layered on top of the 153 designations carried over from the 16th package), the addition of 31 entities — including third-country (Chinese, Turkish, UAE, Hong Kong) firms — to the Annex IV list of military end-users barred from receiving dual-use and critical industry goods (covering chemical precursors used in missile propellants and spare parts for high-precision machine tools), and reinforced anti-circumvention "no-Russia" clause obligations on EU exporters. Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/933 imposes asset freezes on 17 additional individuals and 58 additional entities, including shadow-fleet vessels and operators, a major Russian oil company, Russian military/defence-sector firms, and persons involved in the looting of Ukrainian cultural heritage. Parallel hybrid-threat, human-rights, and chemical-weapons designations were adopted under separate horizontal regimes on the same day. The Council noted EU shadow-fleet and oil-price-cap measures had reduced Russian revenues by approximately EUR 38 billion since introduction. Entry into force on 21 May 2025 (day following publication in the Official Journal).

On 20 May 2025 the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office updated the UK Sanctions List, adding 82 entries (20 individuals and 62 entities) under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. OFSI's accompanying Financial Sanctions Notice confirms all 82 are now subject to an asset freeze and trust services sanctions. The package covers three clusters: further members of the Kremlin-linked Social Design Agency (SDA) disinformation network (first designated in 2024); Russian financial institutions including the St Petersburg Currency Exchange, the Petersburg Settlement Center, and the State Corporation Deposit Insurance Agency; and individuals and companies supporting Russia's oil "shadow fleet" logistics, including a British national accused of ship procurement and two tanker captains. The measures were published in coordination with the EU's 17th sanctions package, announced the same day.

Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 9 May 2025 (jointly published 16 May 2025) establishing a framework for information-sharing, coordinated investigations, designated points of contact, regular bilateral meetings, joint training, and exchange of technical expertise on sanctions enforcement. The MoU is not legally binding and neither side is obliged to share information, but it formalises an enforcement-cooperation channel that previously operated only ad-hoc. It is the first sanctions-enforcement MoU Switzerland has concluded with a third country (the US has a comparable arrangement with the UK's OFSI), and SECO has indicated more such MoUs will follow.

On 14 May 2025, President Emomali Rahmon signed Law No. 2173 "On Capital and Promotion of Investment Activity," replacing Tajikistan's 2016 Law "On Investments." The law introduces a 15-year stability and grandfathering guarantee shielding investors against adverse changes in tax, customs, and foreign-exchange legislation after capital commitment, codifies fair-and-equitable-treatment and the minimum international standard of treatment for foreign capital, establishes a state Investment Committee under the Government as the authorised inter-ministerial coordination body, creates a government-level Investment Council chaired by the Prime Minister for high-strategic-priority projects, and clarifies that unpublished legal acts (gazette-unpublished government orders, ministerial instructions, regional regulations) are not binding on investors. The law directly strengthens the regulatory foundation for Chinese and other foreign mining-investment vehicles operating in Tajikistan's antimony, silver, gold, and uranium sectors.

NIB, the multilateral development bank owned by the eight Nordic and Baltic member states, signed a five-year NOK 250 million (EUR 26 million) onlending facility with SpareBank 1 Helgeland, a regional savings bank in Helgeland County, northern Norway. The facility is part of NIB's Arctic Facility and finances onward lending to SMEs and smaller mid-cap companies across agriculture, aquaculture, real estate, and construction, as well as environmental projects in the region. It is the third loan agreement between NIB and the bank, following an earlier SME-only facility and a renewable-energy loan. NIB financing is priced at preferential development-bank rates relative to commercial project finance, functioning as a below-market state-backed subsidy channelled to regional SME lending.

The People's Bank of China announced on 2025-05-07 a CNY 300 billion (~USD 41.4bn) increase to its "支农支小" (support-agriculture, support-small-business) relending quota, taking the facility's total size to CNY 3 trillion. The move is intended to incentivise local corporate financial institutions to expand credit to agriculture-related, small/micro and private enterprises, and was announced alongside a cut to the relending rate and paired increases to PBOC's tech-innovation/equipment-renewal relending quota (+CNY 300bn to CNY 800bn) and a new CNY 500bn service-consumption/elderly-care relending facility, as part of a broader monetary-easing package unveiled at a State Council Information Office press conference.

On 6 May 2025 the European Investment Fund (EIF) and Danske Bank signed an InvestEU-backed guarantee agreement making up to EUR 178 million in fresh financing available to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small mid-cap companies in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The facility, rolled out before summer 2025, is split roughly 60% toward sustainability (renewable energy, energy efficiency) projects and 40% toward innovation and digitalisation, and follows a EUR 50 million EIF guarantee for Finnish green investments agreed with Danske Bank in 2024.

On 1 May 2025 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), jointly with FinCEN, designated two Mexican nationals — Oscar Guillermo Juraidini Silva and J. Refugio Ruiz Villagomez — and nine entities they own or control, pursuant to Executive Order 14059 (illicit drug trade) and E.O. 13224 (as amended), for facilitating a Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) fuel-theft and cross-border smuggling scheme ("huachicol fiscal") that falsifies customs documentation to evade Mexico's IEPS fuel-import tax. FinCEN concurrently issued a supplemental alert on fuel-smuggling and fiscal fuel-theft red flags. All property and interests in property of the designees within US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally barred from transacting with them.

Thailand's Cabinet approved in principle on 22 April 2025 the urgent revision of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999), directing the Ministry of Commerce to overhaul the foundational 25-year-old statute governing foreign participation in Thai economic activities, explicitly shifting the guiding principle from "protection" of domestic entrepreneurs to "enhancing competitiveness." In January 2026, the Department of Business Development operationalised the reform by announcing a 10-sector List-3 delisting package — including telecommunications services not owning network infrastructure, software development, financial-services categories (treasury centres, derivatives agency, collateralised lending, credit guarantee), petroleum drilling services, management services for affiliated companies, and domestic agricultural commodity trading — that would allow wholly-foreign-owned subsidiaries without a Foreign Business Licence (FBL). Simultaneously, the revision introduces a shift from a legal-shareholding test to an actual-control / beneficial-ownership test in nominee-shareholder enforcement, tightening the anti-front-company architecture while liberalising legitimate foreign-investment routes. Full statutory enactment via parliamentary process is expected mid-to-late 2026.

Premier Li Qiang signed State Council Order No. 803 on 23 March 2025 promulgating the "Regulations on Implementation of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law of the People's Republic of China" (22 articles), effective on the date of publication (24 March 2025). The Regulations operationalise the 2021 Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law by clarifying the scope of countermeasure tools — explicitly extending "other property" subject to seizure to cash, bank deposits, securities, equity, intellectual property and accounts receivable, and listing the specific transaction and cooperation activities that may be prohibited or restricted (education, S&T, legal services, environment, trade, culture, tourism, health, sports, data and cross-border data transfers). They define inter-agency procedure, evidence and notice requirements for designations, and bind PRC organisations and individuals — including foreign-invested entities operating in China — to implement countermeasures, with sanctions including exclusion from government procurement, import/export and cross-border-data restrictions, and exit/stay restrictions for responsible persons.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a final rule on 21 March 2025 adopting without change its 13 September 2024 interim final rule that doubled the recordkeeping retention requirement for transactions subject to OFAC regulations from five years to ten years. The extension aligns 31 CFR 501.601, paragraph IV.B of appendix A to part 501, and 31 CFR 515.572 with the 10-year statute of limitations for IEEPA and TWEA violations enacted by the 21st Century Peace through Strength Act of 24 April 2024. The interim final rule's 10-year retention obligation became effective 12 March 2025; the final rule confirmed the IFR text without modification.

FinCEN issued an interim final rule (FR Doc 2025-05199, 90 FR 13688, published March 26, 2025) revising the definition of "reporting company" under the Corporate Transparency Act to mean only entities formed under the law of a foreign country that have registered to do business in a U.S. State or tribal jurisdiction. All entities created in the United States — previously known as "domestic reporting companies" — and U.S. persons are exempted from BOI reporting. Foreign reporting companies registered before March 26, 2025 must file by April 25, 2025; those registered on or after that date have 30 days from registration. Foreign reporting companies are not required to report any U.S. persons as beneficial owners. The IFR is effective immediately; FinCEN is accepting comments and intends to finalize the rule.

The Nigeria Data Protection Commission issued the General Application and Implementation Directive (GAID) 2025 on 20 March 2025, the principal implementing directive of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA). The GAID came fully into force on 19 September 2025, replacing the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) 2019 as the operative enforcement instrument. It applies extraterritorially to any data controller or processor established outside Nigeria that processes personal data of Nigerian data subjects, imposes a tripartite cross-border transfer framework (adequacy decisions, Transfer Instruments, and statutory exceptions), mandates Data Protection Impact Assessments for AI and high-risk technologies, and carries a civil-penalty ceiling of 2% of annual gross revenue or NGN 10 million for designated data controllers and processors of major importance (DCPMIs), whichever is greater.

On March 11, 2025 FinCEN issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) under 31 USC 5326 — published in the Federal Register on March 14, 2025 (FR Doc. 2025-04099) and effective April 14, 2025 — requiring every money services business (MSB) located in 30 designated ZIP codes across seven counties in California (Imperial, San Diego) and Texas (Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick, Webb) to file a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) on cash transactions of more than $200 but not more than $10,000, far below the Bank Secrecy Act's standard $10,000 CTR floor. The order also imposed customer-identification recordkeeping and, per the FinCEN order text, gave covered MSBs thirty (30) days to file CTRs (vs. the standard fifteen). It was framed by Treasury as part of the post-January-2025 cartel-targeting policy stack (Trump Executive Order 14157 designating Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations / SDGTs) and was intended to surface low-value cash flows used by Mexico-based cartels and related criminal actors. The GTO was a 180-day order set to expire September 9, 2025; it was subsequently superseded on September 10, 2025 by a modified GTO that raised the threshold to $1,000 in response to MSB-industry feedback on burden, expanded geography to Arizona, and was itself replaced/expanded again on March 10, 2026.

On 24 February 2025, the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Council of the European Union adopted the 16th package of restrictive measures against Russia, anchored by Council Regulation (EU) 2025/395 amending Regulation 833/2014 and a cluster of associated regulations (2025/389, 2025/390, 2025/392, 2025/398, 2025/401). The package introduces the EU's first import ban on Russian primary aluminium (CN 7601) under a 275 kt transition quota (~80% of 2024 volumes), expels 13 additional Russian banks from the SWIFT financial-messaging system, adds 74 vessels (153 total) to the shadow-fleet port-access and services ban, prohibits any temporary storage of Russian crude and petroleum products in EU ports, bans transactions with major Russian airports (Moscow Vnukovo, Zhukovsky) and ports (Astrakhan, Makhachkala, Ust-Luga, Primorsk, Novorossiysk) used for sanctions circumvention, extends flight-ban coverage to 25 third-country airlines operating domestic Russian routes, and adds 83 asset-freeze listings (48 individuals, 35 entities) under Regulation 269/2014. Parallel measures cover Belarus and the non-government-controlled areas of Ukraine. Entry into force on 25 February 2025.

Canada made SOR/2025-33, Regulations Amending the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, registered and effective 2025-02-21. The regulations add 32 individuals (Schedule 1, Part 1) and 44 entities (Schedule 1, Part 2) tied to Russia's military-industrial base, sanctions circumvention, disinformation and the forced deportation/filtration of Ukrainian children. A new Schedule 1.1 lists 109 vessels by IMO number — 92 oil tankers and 9 LNG tankers moving Russian energy exports to third countries, plus 8 vessels moving arms and related material between Russia, Iran and North Korea — banning their access to Canadian ports and waters and prohibiting dealings, asset provision and financial/other services in relation to them.

On 4 February 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-2, "Imposing Maximum Pressure on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Denying Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon, and Countering Iran's Malign Influence." The memorandum reimposes the first- term "maximum pressure" framework, directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury and the Attorney General to (i) drive Iran's exports of crude oil and petroleum products — including to the People's Republic of China — to zero; (ii) review and modify or rescind sanctions waivers and general licences (notably the Chabahar port waiver benefiting India); (iii) sanction shadow-fleet vessels, intermediaries, refineries (including PRC "teapot" refiners) and oil traders facilitating Iranian energy exports; and (iv) lead a diplomatic isolation campaign including a snapback of UN Security Council sanctions under JCPOA Resolution 2231 paragraph 11. Since promulgation, OFAC has designated 1,000+ Iran-related persons, vessels and aircraft and four PRC independent ("teapot") refiners alleged to have processed sanctioned Iranian crude. The DOJ is also directed to pursue impoundment of Iranian oil cargoes and seizure of Iranian assets to satisfy US-court terrorism-victim judgments.

El Salvador's Legislative Assembly adopted Decreto Legislativo No. 199 on 29 January 2025 with 55 of 60 votes, reforming six articles and repealing three articles of the original Ley Bitcoin (Decreto 57, June 2021). The reform downgrades Bitcoin from compulsory legal tender to voluntary acceptance only — private parties are no longer obliged to accept BTC payments, and Bitcoin can no longer be used to pay taxes or settle public-sector debts. The State also withdraws from operational involvement in the Chivo Wallet platform. The reform is an explicit prior action under the IMF's US$1.4 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme (IMF Country Report 25/58), published in the Diario Oficial on 30 January 2025 and entering into force 90 days later on 30 April 2025.

Nepal's Federal Parliament ratified an omnibus statute on 20–31 March 2025 converting the 13 January 2025 Presidential Ordinance into permanent law, comprehensively amending 11 Acts including the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act 2019 (FITTA), the Industrial Enterprises Act 2020, and the Special Economic Zone Act 2016. The statute expands the scope of permissible foreign investment (replacing the positive-list "any industry" with the broader "any industry other than those in the Schedule"), broadens the "technology transfer" definition to include management/technical services, IT, marketing, finance, engineering, and digital-data-processing, mandates prior Department of Industry approval for foreign investor equity transfers to domestic parties, and for the first time authorises Nepali companies to invest abroad using income earned from technology exports. Repatriation approval windows are compressed to 7 days (15 days for appeals), and foreign investment in Specialised Investment Fund (SIF) units is enabled via SEBON approval.

Malaysia's Personal Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2024 (Act A1727), gazetted 17 October 2024, enters its third and final commencement phase on 1 June 2025 per commencement order P.U.(B) 522/2024. Phase 3 activates sections 6 and 9 of the amending Act, which impose mandatory Data Protection Officer (DPO) appointment thresholds, a 72-hour breach-notification duty to the Commissioner, and a statutory data-portability right, bringing Malaysia's PDPA broadly into alignment with GDPR and the ASEAN Model AI Governance Framework.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a final rule on 19 December 2024 amending 32 parts of 31 CFR chapter V to modernize the general licenses authorizing payments for legal services from funds originating outside the United States. The rule replaces the annual reporting requirement that had applied to such payments with a 10-year recordkeeping requirement, aligning the legal-services general licenses with the new 10-year statute of limitations for IEEPA/TWEA violations and OFAC's parallel 5→10-year recordkeeping extension (31 CFR 501). The rule also standardises legal-services general-license language across programs — removing legacy letter-of-engagement prerequisites in certain parts (e.g., 31 CFR 594, 597), updating 31 CFR 549 (Lebanon) and 31 CFR 576 (Iraq Stabilization and Insurgency) to remove the requirement that payments for authorised legal services be separately specifically licensed, and harmonising the 31 CFR 591 (Venezuela-related) authorisation language. The rule was effective 19 December 2024 with an applicability date of 12 March 2025.

Ethiopia's Banking Business Proclamation No. 1360/2025, ratified by the House of Peoples' Representatives on 17 December 2024 and gazetted in March 2025, repeals Proclamation 592/2008 and opens Ethiopia's banking sector to foreign participation for the first time since the 1974 Derg-era nationalisations. Foreign banks may enter via subsidiary establishment, branch licensing, representative offices, or equity acquisition in existing domestic banks. A single strategic foreign investor is capped at 40% ownership per domestic bank, with aggregate foreign ownership across all investors capped at 49%. The reform positions Ethiopia — Africa's second-most-populous country — as a competitor to Nairobi, Lagos, and Johannesburg as an African banking centre, unlocking entry plans by Standard Bank, KCB Group, Equity Bank, ABSA, and GCC-based institutions.

On 16 December 2024 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2024/3192 amending Regulation (EU) 833/2014, the 15th package of restrictive measures against Russia. The package adds 84 asset-freeze listings (54 individuals and 30 entities) under Regulation 269/2014 — for the first time including fully-fledged designations of seven Chinese individuals and entities supplying drone components, machine tools, and dual-use goods to the Russian military-industrial complex. It expands the EU shadow-fleet vessel- ban list by 52 tankers (total 79), activates the standalone EU hybrid- threats sanctions regime with its first 16-individual / 3-entity designations, extends the wind-down derogation for divestment from Russian subsidiaries to 31 December 2025, and reinforces anti- circumvention contractual clauses on EU exporters of dual-use goods.

UAE Cabinet Decision No. 142 of 2024, announced 9 December 2024 and formally gazetted 11 February 2025, introduces a Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT) on UAE constituent entities of Multinational Enterprise (MNE) groups with consolidated annual revenues ≥ EUR 750 million in at least two of the four preceding fiscal years. The DMTT ensures a 15% minimum effective tax rate (ETR) on UAE-source profits, functioning as a Qualified Domestic Minimum Top-up Tax (QDMTT) under the OECD/G20 Pillar Two GloBE framework, thereby giving the UAE first-priority taxing right before any IIR top-up by a parent-jurisdiction authority. The measure applies to fiscal years beginning on or after 1 January 2025. The UAE deliberately excluded the Income Inclusion Rule (IIR) and Under-Taxed Profits Rule (UTPR) from this primary instrument, deferring those to subsequent Cabinet Decisions; the QDMTT-only architecture mirrors Singapore's MEMTA and Switzerland's MindStV as the first-mover design choice for established low-tax financial hubs.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register (89 FR 84472–84474, FR Doc 2024-24524) three general licenses issued under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588): GL 3A, GL 4, and GL 5. All three were originally issued on 18 June 2024 concurrent with OFAC's expansion of Republika Srpska / Dodik-network designations; the 23 October 2024 Federal Register notice formalises them per the Administrative Procedure Act notice requirements. GL 3A (which superseded GL 3 of 16 November 2023) authorises transactions involving certain WBSR-blocked entities that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the exportation or re-exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts and components, software updates, or activities involving medical prevention, diagnosis, treatment, or clinical trials. GL 4 authorises wind-down transactions with entities blocked on 18 June 2024 through a defined cutoff. GL 5 authorises transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the manufacture, distribution, operation, installation, or maintenance/repair of drinking-water pumps manufactured or distributed by the WBSR-blocked Bosnian Serb entity Kaldera Company EL PGP d.o.o. (and 50%-or-more-owned subsidiaries), preserving municipal water supply continuity.

FinCEN published a final rule (FR Doc 2024-23920, 89 FR 83782, effective on publication October 18, 2024) clarifying the public-utility exemption to the Corporate Transparency Act's beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting rule. The amendment to 31 CFR 1010.380(c)(2)(xv) corrects a drafting cross-reference so the exemption explicitly covers any regulated public utility under 26 U.S.C. 7701(a)(33)(A) *or* (D) that provides telecommunications services, electrical power, natural gas, or water and sewer services within the United States. The change codifies FinCEN's June 10, 2024 telecommunications-provider guidance and is effective immediately upon publication; it neither expands nor restricts the underlying universe of reporting companies beyond aligning the rule text with the CTA statute.

Australia's first standalone cyber-security statute (Act No. 98 of 2024), passed by Parliament on 25 November 2024 and granted Royal Assent on 29 November 2024, with provisions commencing in tranches through 30 May 2025. The Act creates four binding regimes: (i) mandatory security-of-things standards for connected and IoT products supplied in Australia under regulations administered by the Department of Home Affairs; (ii) a mandatory ransomware / cyber-extortion payment disclosure regime requiring reporting business entities with annual turnover above AUD 3 million to notify the Australian Signals Directorate within 72 hours of any ransom payment made by or on behalf of the entity; (iii) a statutory Cyber Incident Review Board to conduct no-blame post-incident reviews of significant cyber incidents; and (iv) a "limited use" protection restricting how information voluntarily shared with the National Cyber Security Coordinator may be used by Commonwealth agencies. The Act implements core initiatives from the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy and affects every firm selling connected devices into Australia or operating above the turnover threshold in Australia.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a final rule on 8 October 2024 amending the Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations (RPPR) at 31 CFR Part 501. The rule finalises portions of OFAC's 10 May 2024 interim final rule and adds three exceptions to the requirement to file a report with OFAC concerning blocked property that is unblocked or transferred. It also implements other technical clarifications to OFAC's reporting framework. The rule takes effect on 7 November 2024.

FinCEN issued a final order, published in the Federal Register on 11 October 2024 (signed 26 September 2024), prohibiting US covered financial institutions from engaging in transmittals of funds to or from PM2BTC, a virtual-currency exchange operating outside the United States and identified as a primary money-laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance. The order is the first use of FinCEN's special- measure authority under Section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, as amended by the FY 2022 NDAA (codified at 31 U.S.C. 5323). The action was coordinated with same-day OFAC SDN designations of related entities (Cryptex) and individuals (Sergey Sergeevich Ivanov of Taleon Holdings).

FinCEN issued a final rule (89 FR 70258, FR Doc 2024-19198) requiring certain real-estate-closing and settlement professionals to file a new "Real Estate Report" and maintain records on non-financed (i.e., all-cash) transfers of U.S. residential real property to specified legal entities and trusts, on a nationwide basis. The rule uses a "reporting cascade" to designate one filer per transaction (settlement agent, title-insurance underwriter, escrow agent, or attorney, depending on which is present), replacing the long-running geographic-targeting-order (GTO) regime with a permanent nationwide framework. The original effective date of December 1, 2025 was subsequently postponed to March 1, 2026 via a FinCEN exemptive-relief order issued September 30, 2025.

FinCEN issued a final rule (published September 4, 2024 at 89 FR 72156; FR Doc 2024-19260) including most SEC-registered investment advisers (RIAs) and Exempt Reporting Advisers (ERAs) within the Bank Secrecy Act definition of "financial institution." Covered firms must implement a risk-based AML/CFT compliance program, appoint a compliance officer, train staff, obtain independent testing, file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs), and participate in §314(a)/(b) information sharing. The original compliance date was January 1, 2026; FinCEN subsequently delayed the effective date to January 1, 2028 by final rule published 2026-01-02 (FR Doc 2025-24184).

On 11 August 2024, King Salman issued Royal Decree No. M/19 promulgating Saudi Arabia's new Investment Law (Nizam al-Istithmar), which entered into force on 12 February 2025 (180 days after publication in the Um Al-Qura' Gazette). The law replaces the 2000 Foreign Investment Law (Royal Decree M/1) and eliminates the statutory distinction between Saudi and non-Saudi investors, establishing a unified national-treatment framework: foreign investors no longer require a separate MISA foreign-investment licence and instead complete a streamlined registration with a national registry before commencing activity (other than listed securities, which remain under CMA rules). The law codifies fair-and-equitable treatment, freedom to manage and repatriate capital, IP protection, and protection from expropriation except by final judicial ruling with prompt compensation; activities are open by default, subject only to an "Excluded Activities" list maintained by an inter-ministerial committee. Implementing Regulations were issued by Ministerial Resolution No. 1086 dated 8/8/1446H (7 February 2025) and published in Um Al-Qura' Gazette issue 5083 on 25 April 2025. The law is the foundational FDI architecture for Vision 2030 and pairs with the 30-year RHQ tax-incentive package and the 2021 Mining Investment Law.

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register reporting instructions implementing Section 104(a) of the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act (P.L. 118-50, Division F, enacted April 24, 2024). All US financial institutions at which Russian sovereign assets are located — or that know or should know of such assets, including in correspondent or payable-through accounts — must report those holdings to OFAC using Form TD-F 93.09. Initial reports were due by August 2, 2024, with rolling reports required within 10 days of detecting newly identified Russian sovereign assets. The notice is the predicate step for any future US seizure or transfer of frozen Russian central bank, National Wealth Fund, or Russian Ministry of Finance assets to benefit Ukraine.

The Ethiopian Capital Market Authority (ECMA) issued Directive No. 1009/2024 on 16 July 2024, establishing the comprehensive licensing, operational, and supervisory framework for securities exchanges, derivatives exchanges, and the over-the-counter (OTC) market under the authority of Article 108 of the Capital Market Proclamation No. 1248/2021. The directive consolidates Ethiopia's previously fragmented securities-trading architecture into a single, licensed, and regulated market structure and provided the statutory pathway for the Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) to receive the country's first securities-exchange licence. This is the first capital-markets architecture filing for Ethiopia on the IPTM register, forming the operating- licence layer alongside the banking-sector liberalisation enacted under Proclamation 1360/2025.

The German Federal Cabinet adopted a 49-measure cross-sectoral supply-side reform package on 17 July 2024 alongside the draft 2025 Federal Budget, aimed at reversing Germany's decade-long slide in global competitiveness rankings (from 6th to 24th since 2014). The package covers tax and social-security exemptions for overtime and weekend work, foreign skilled-worker incentives (Aktivrente / extended short-time-work rules), bureaucracy reduction targeting ~€944m/yr in compliance-cost savings, flexible working-time arrangements, energy-price relief for industry (Strompreispaket), accelerated infrastructure and planning-procedure reforms, expanded investment deductions and degressive depreciation for movable assets, and a raised R&D-allowance ceiling. The initiative is the supply-side / regulatory-reform complement to the simultaneously adopted SVIKG €500bn special infrastructure fund and is structurally analogous to the UK Mansion House Reforms and France's France 2030 productivity-enhancement pillar.

FinCEN issued a final rule under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act (31 U.S.C. § 5318A) prohibiting US covered financial institutions from opening or maintaining a correspondent account for, or on behalf of, Iraq-based Al-Huda Bank, a foreign financial institution found to be of primary money-laundering concern. Treasury determined that Al-Huda Bank exploited its access to US dollars to support designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations including Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and IRGC-Quds Force, as well as Iran-aligned Iraqi militias Kata'ib Hizballah and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq. The rule also imposes a special-due-diligence requirement on US covered institutions to guard against indirect access via foreign correspondent accounts. Published in the Federal Register on July 3, 2024; effective August 2, 2024.

On 24 June 2024 the Council of the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1745, the 14th package of restrictive measures against Russia, amending Regulation (EU) 833/2014. The package introduces the EU's first targeted measures against Russian LNG (a ban on EU-port transhipment to third countries after a 9-month transition, and a prohibition on EU investment and goods/services exports to Russian LNG projects under construction such as Arctic LNG 2 and Murmansk LNG), bans EU entities outside Russia from using the SPFS Russian financial-messaging system, designates 27 named "shadow-fleet" tankers under a new vessel-specific port-access ban, and imposes a "best-efforts" obligation on EU parents to ensure non-EU subsidiaries do not engage in sanctions circumvention. It adds 116 new listings (69 individuals, 47 entities), including third-country circumvention enablers, to the asset-freeze and travel-ban regime.

OFAC final rule (FR Doc 2024-11618, 89 FR 46518) amending the Cuban Assets Control Regulations at 31 CFR Part 515 to further implement the May 2022 Biden administration policy of expanded support for the Cuban people. The rule reinstates the "U-turn" general license (authorizing US banks to process funds transfers that originate and terminate outside the US, neither originator nor beneficiary a US person); replaces "self-employed individual" with the broader "independent private sector entrepreneur" (covering Cuban private businesses up to 100 employees, including private cooperatives); authorizes Cuban nationals in the private sector and located in Cuba to open and operate accounts at US financial institutions (including via online/mobile banking); and expands authorizations for internet-based services to support Cuban civil society and private-sector entrepreneurs. Effective 29 May 2024.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an interim final rule (IFR) on 10 May 2024 (FR Doc 2024-10033, 89 FR) amending the Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations (RPPR) at 31 CFR Part 501. The IFR overhauls OFAC's reporting framework by requiring electronic submission of certain reports through the OFAC Reporting System (ORS), expanding the rejected-transaction reporting obligation to all U.S. persons (not only U.S. financial institutions), modifying blocked-property reporting procedures, updating procedures for petitions for administrative reconsideration and property-blocked-in-error requests, and revising FOIA-availability provisions. The IFR took effect on 8 August 2024 and was subsequently finalised — with three new exceptions to the blocked-property reporting requirement — by the 8 October 2024 final rule (FR Doc 2024-23217, effective 7 November 2024).

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register "Directive 1 under Executive Order 14014, 'Prohibitions Related to Financial Services to or for the Benefit of Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.'" The Directive — originally issued on OFAC's website on 2023-10-31 with a 2023-12-15 effective date — determines that MOGE is a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of Burma and prohibits U.S. persons from providing, exporting, or reexporting, directly or indirectly, financial services to or for the benefit of MOGE. The Federal Register publication codifies notice of the Directive in the formal record of agency action; the underlying prohibition has been operative since December 2023.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the Provisions on Promoting and Regulating Cross-Border Data Flows (《促进和规范数据跨境流动规定》) on 22 March 2024, effective immediately. The rules substantially raise the thresholds at which CAC security assessment, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC), or Personal Information Protection Certification are required for outbound data transfers, and create categorical exemptions for contract performance, HR management, intra-group transfers below a volume threshold, and transit data processed in China with no domestic personal information introduced. A Free Trade Zone pilot mechanism allows designated FTZs (Shanghai Lingang, Tianjin, Beijing) to publish their own negative lists defining which data categories still require prior approval, easing conditions for multinationals with operations in those zones.

OFAC amended and reissued the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 583) in their entirety on 12 March 2024, to implement the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and EO 13818 (20 December 2017) more fully. The reissuance adds expanded interpretive guidance, new definitions (agricultural commodities, medicines, medical devices), new statutory authority (Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020), and several new general licenses covering blocked-account management, legal services, personal-use medical/food transactions, and emergency services. No new SDN designations or country-level targeting; the action is a compliance-architecture update that clarifies permissible conduct and tightens procedural standards across the global human-rights-and-corruption sanctions program.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published in the Federal Register (89 FR 16400, FR Doc 2024-04856) two general licenses issued under the Western Balkans Stabilization Regulations (31 CFR Part 588): GL 2 and GL 3. Both were originally issued on 16 November 2023 concurrent with OFAC's initial round of Republika Srpska / Dodik-network designations; the 7 March 2024 Federal Register notice formalises them per the Administrative Procedure Act notice requirements. GL 2 authorises wind-down transactions with newly blocked WBSR entities through 15 March 2024. GL 3 authorises exports and re-exports of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts, and services for medical prevention and treatment to WBSR-blocked persons; GL 3 was subsequently superseded by GL 3A on 18 June 2024.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published a final rule in the Federal Register (89 FR 15769, FR Doc 2024-04500) renaming the Darfur Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 546) to the Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations and amending them to implement Executive Order 14098 of May 4, 2023. E.O. 14098 broadened US sanctions authority beyond the Darfur-specific frame to cover all persons destabilising Sudan and undermining democratic transition, responding to the SAF–RSF armed conflict that erupted in April 2023. The rule adds new general licenses covering legal-service payments (§ 546.508), African Union transactions (§ 546.511), and agricultural/medical exports (§ 546.513), and introduces an interpretative provision clarifying that entities are not automatically blocked solely because a blocked individual holds a leadership position.

On 29 February 2024 Switzerland's WBF decided to align with the EU's 13th Russia sanctions package by amending the Ordinance on Measures in Connection with the Situation in Ukraine (SR 946.231.176.72), effective 1 March 2024 at 18:00 CET. The amendment adds over 100 individuals and nearly 90 entities — mainly Russian military-industrial-complex firms and suppliers of DPRK-sourced weapons to Russia — to the asset-freeze and designation lists, and extends the dual-use/military-technology export ban to 27 additional companies believed to be circumventing existing controls.

Canada made SOR/2024-32, Regulations Amending the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, registered and effective 2024-02-21 on the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The regulations add 163 persons to Schedule 1 — 10 individuals and 153 entities, predominantly Russian organizations tied to military-industrial production, logistics, insurance and oil-sector support — triggering Canadian dealing/asset bans. A parallel amendment to Schedule 7 adds five new goods categories under the Harmonized System (explosives and pyrotechnics; data-processing units and components; ball and roller bearings; semiconductor manufacturing equipment; optical and navigational instruments), banning their export to Russia or Russian persons.

On 31 January 2024 Switzerland's Federal Council decided to align with the EU's 12th sanctions package (adopted 18 December 2023) by amending the Ordinance on Measures Relating to the Situation in Ukraine (SR 946.231.176.72), entering into force the same day at 18:00. The update extends Switzerland's Russia-sanctions perimeter to match the EU's additions — including the Russian diamond, steel and other import-revenue restrictions — and adds a new financial-sector prohibition barring Russian nationals and Russia-resident individuals from controlling Swiss crypto-asset service providers, aimed at closing sanctions-circumvention and enforcement gaps.