India appealed an April World Trade Organization panel report that said its duties on information and communications technology goods destined to the EU violated India's tariff commitments, the WTO announced Dec. 14 (see 2304170018). The EU, Japan and Taiwan each have brought cases to the WTO to dispute the Indian tariffs, and India filed a similar appeal of Japan's case against the tariffs in May (see 2305250056). The WTO can't address the appeals because it doesn't have a functioning appellate body (see 2311200078).
Chile formally accepted the agreement on fisheries subsidies on Dec. 12, bringing to 53 the number of World Trade Organization members to have accepted the deal, the WTO announced. This number is "nearly half" of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification. Claudia Sanhueza Riveros, Chile's undersecretary of international economic relations, said the deal "is a very important agreement, especially for countries in the Pacific, where our marine ecosystems are generally being overexploited. It also seeks to address the global challenges we face in terms of the sustainability of our environment and our oceans.”
The European Council this week added to its sanctions regimes for Iran and Myanmar and extended its restrictions on Mali for another year.
The U.K. this week unveiled a new agency that it said will boost enforcement of its Russia sanctions and "clamp down on companies dodging" those restrictions, the Department for Business and Trade announced. The new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation also will help the government issue "tougher penalties" for trade sanctions violations and refer cases for criminal enforcement.
The European Council on Dec. 8 added two Hamas military leaders to the EU terrorist list. Mohammed Deif, commander general of Hamas' military wing, and Marwan Issa, the deputy commander, are now subject to an asset freeze.
The U.K. this week designated 25 people and 20 entities under its Russia sanctions regime. The listings included a mix of businesses based in Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Serbia and Uzbekistan, covering industries in the energy, shipping and defense sectors. Among those sanctioned was Russian firm Aeroscan, which was designated for supplying drones to the Russian military, along with Dubai-based shipping companies Radiating World Shipping Services and Star Voyages Shipping services, which do business in a Russian "sector of strategic significance."
One day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told AFP that the bloc won't "tolerate" a trade imbalance with China, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China has never sought a trade surplus with Europe and pushed back on the notion that the trading relationship has hurt the EU.
Robert Wise, a New York-based lawyer who helped manage luxury properties for sanctioned Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, was sentenced Dec. 5 to one year of house arrest followed by one year of probation. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil also levied a $100,000 fine against the lawyer, to be paid out in $8,333.33 monthly installments over the next year.
The U.S. charged Belgian national Hans Maria De Geetere this week in two separate indictments for allegedly helping to illegally export "military-grade technology" from the U.S. to end-users in China and Russia, DOJ said. The agency said the business owner tried to procure more than $2 million worth of illegal exports from undercover government agents, and told one Commerce Department agent that a shipment was destined for Belgium when it was actually meant for Hong Kong.
The convenors of e-commerce negotiations at the World Trade Organization -- Australia, Japan and Singapore -- are hoping the talks can conclude in early 2024, the WTO said. Unveiling a negotiating road map during a recent meeting, the three countries said the remaining few weeks of 2023 will focus "on bridging the gaps on outstanding issues, such as e-payments, telecommunications and information and communication technology products that use cryptography." Participants in the talks have now "parked" the negotiating text on privacy, the WTO added, raising the number of "parked," or temporarily concluded, topics to 13. Remaining topics include the "scope, exceptions and legal architecture of the future agreement."