Insights

Washington – January 26, 2022: Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group has been named a Practice Group of the Year for 2021 by Law360. This marks the fourth year the group has been recognized by the publication with this distinction.

Washington – August 9, 2018: Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce that the firm has been recognized as “highly commended” in the “Sanctions Law Firm of the Year, USA” category by WorldECR, a leading international journal covering export controls and sanctions. The publication’s annual “WorldECR Awards” honors firms for their “outstanding work, vision, best practice, commercial benefit to the company, and contribution to international security, of organizations and individuals working in the fields of export control and sanctions compliance and non-proliferation.”

On March 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), issued a “notice and request for information and comment” (“RFI”) seeking comments on the Bank Secrecy Act’s (“BSA”) customer identification program (“CIP”) rule.  The CIP rule requires U.S. banks to collect a taxpayer identification number (“TIN”) from a U.S. person before opening a new account for that person.  For individuals, this TIN will be a Social Security number (“SSN”).

On September 11, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)’s National Security Division (“NSD”) announced the appointment of its first-ever Chief Counsel and Deputy Chief Counsel for Corporate Enforcement, fulfilling a commitment made by DOJ in March 2023. Both appointees are prosecutors with significant experience prosecuting large-scale, international corporate crimes, commensurate with DOJ’s recent emphasis on holding accountable corporate actors that violate national security laws, including sanctions and export controls.

The Outbound Investment Program will be implemented through regulations issued by Treasury that will require notification for, or will otherwise prohibit U.S. persons from undertaking, certain transactions involving “covered national security products or technologies” and entities connected to a “country of concern.” Accordingly – concurrent with the Executive Order – Treasury released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that provides some potential definitions of these terms, but the exact definitions and the details of the regulations will be developed through public notice and comment that concludes on September 28, 2023. Treasury also published a Fact Sheet that provides additional information on the proposed details and scope of the outbound investment prohibitions and notification requirements, which will likely not be finalized until 2024 sometime after Treasury has published draft regulations and gathered another round of public comments.

Law.com* speaks with senior counsel Clif Burns about the challenges companies are facing when closing down branches in Russia with a considerable number of American employees. According to Burns, companies don’t want to start closing down operations while Americans are there and risk their arrest, and several strategies have been developed for paying Russia-based employees.

Meeting U.S. customs law requirements can be challenging, time-consuming, and very costly for importers if not done right. Non-compliance with customs laws can result in civil and criminal penalties, denial of entry, seizure and destruction of goods. It is imperative for importers to have a solid protocol for applying the critical rules on a day-to-day basis.

Nicole Succar, and other ACSS course instructors will be leading the second virtual classroom "OFAC Risk Management and Enforcement" as part five of the seven part OFAC Essentials Certification Course by ACSS. This course is designed for entry and intermediate levels, with a focus on core lessons for US Sanctions compliance.

Join Crowell's Michelle Linderman and Dj Wolff on December 14, 2022, 13:00 UTC for a BIMCO 15 + 15 webinar (15 min presentation, followed by a 15 min Q&A). They will talk about the price cap on Russian oil exports, whereby the G7, along with the European Union and Australia, have agreed to implement a price cap on Russian oil and oil products in order to reduce Russia’s revenues which are funding its war efforts in Ukraine while seeking to ensure energy security.  The price cap is designed to allow companies to provide shipment and insurance of Russian oil and oil products provided that the purchase price is below the agreed price cap, but how has it begun to work in practice, and what are the practical issues being experienced by the different actors in the supply chain?

Please join the ACAMS New York Chapter panel for a discussion on economic sanctions policy and enforcement under the Biden Administration, including what's happened in the first four months and what we can expect over the next four years.