Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reached a $968,618,825 settlement with Binance Holdings, Ltd. — a Cayman Islands–domiciled virtual-currency exchange — to resolve civil liability for 1,667,153 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs (Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine) committed between August 2017 and October 2022. OFAC determined the apparent violations were not voluntarily self-disclosed and that Binance's conduct was egregious; the settlement requires a five-year independent compliance monitor and was announced concurrently with parallel DOJ, FinCEN, and CFTC resolutions totaling approximately $4.3 billion in aggregate (including criminal forfeiture and BSA/AML penalties), alongside a separate criminal plea by founder Changpeng Zhao. The settlement is the largest civil monetary penalty in OFAC's history.

On 16 August 2023 the Swiss Federal Council amended the Ordinance of 4 March 2022 on Measures in Connection with the Situation in Ukraine (SR 946.231.176.72), aligning with the EU's 11th Russia sanctions package. The amendment adds two UAE-headquartered firms to the list of entities barred from exemptions to Switzerland's dual-use export ban on Russia, restricts the sale of securities issued after 6 August 2023 to Russian nationals, residents, entities and businesses regardless of currency, and adds 12 individuals and 87 entities to the asset-freeze list, targeting dual-use/military-tech exporters, FSB-licensed IT firms, propagandists and government officials. It entered into force the same day at 18:00 CEST.

OFAC replaced the abbreviated July 2014 South Sudan Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 558) with a comprehensive final rule that adds interpretive guidance, definitions, and general licenses while implementing the full set of prohibitions in Executive Order 13664 of April 3, 2014. The rule does not expand the underlying blocking authority or add new designations; it codifies the existing program in a complete regulatory framework accessible to the public and regulated community. Target: persons threatening South Sudan's peace, security, or stability, obstructing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or responsible for human rights abuses or conflict-mineral trade that finances armed groups.

On 24 February 2023 the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions on 22 individuals and 83 entities, which Treasury describes as targeting key sectors, evasion efforts and military supplies. Treasury issued a determination under Executive Order 14024 identifying the metals and mining sector of the Russian Federation economy as a sector subject to sanctions, and designated 11 Russian financial institutions, including Credit Bank of Moscow, plus Russian defence and advanced-materials enterprises and third-country evasion facilitators. General Licenses 60 and 61 authorise wind-down of dealings with newly blocked entities through 25 May 2023.

Switzerland's Federal Council amended the Ordinance on measures related to the situation in Ukraine (SR 946.231.176.72) to align with the EU's ninth sanctions package, effective 6pm on 25 January 2023. The amendment bans new Swiss investment, equity provision, and participation (including joint ventures) in Russian mining-sector entities, with a carve-out for critical raw materials (aluminium/bauxite, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron ore, mineral fertilisers, molybdenum, nickel, palladium, rhodium, scandium, titanium, vanadium). It also extends export bans on aerospace goods to aircraft and drone engines, adds new controls on dual-use and military/security-enhancement goods, bans product testing/advertising/market-research services to Russia, and designates roughly 200 additional individuals and entities, including the Russian Regional Development Bank, to frozen-asset lists.

FinCEN issued an order on 18 January 2023, published in the Federal Register on 23 January 2023 (FR Doc 2023-01189), prohibiting US covered financial institutions from transmitting funds to, from, or through Bitzlato Limited, a virtual-currency exchange incorporated in Hong Kong and identified as a primary money-laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance. The order invokes Section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, as amended by Section 6106 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (31 U.S.C. 5323). The action was coordinated with a DOJ criminal arrest of Bitzlato co-founder Anatoly Legkodymov and a parallel Europol/Eurojust-supported disruption of Bitzlato's infrastructure, effective 18 January 2023.