The U.K. last week renewed a Russia-related general license that authorizes certain transactions tied to payments that have been processed by a sanctioned credit or financial institution at some point in the payment chain. The license applies when the sanctioned party acted as an original, correspondent or intermediary institution where the recipient institution and the institution that sent the payment are not designated parties, among other conditions. The license, which was scheduled to expire Dec. 1 (see 2310020016), now lasts through Dec. 14.
The EU this week adopted a regulation to open its 2024, 2025 and 2026 autonomous tariff quotas for certain fishery products and establish rules for the management of those quotas. The quotas will be granted only for products imported for processing in the EU, and the regulation will suspend or reduce duties for a limited volume of imports for each of those three years. Duties and volumes will be “specific to each product,” the EU said.
The U.K.'s Department for International Trade on Nov. 21 updated its strategic export controls guidance. The guidance includes information on the country's export control lists, how its export controls are applied and how exporters can apply for a license, penalties and fines.
The European Parliament and the European Council last week reached an agreement on a new set of rules to restrict waste exports, the parliament announced. The agreement, which still needs to be formally approved, seeks to block exports of certain non-hazardous wastes and mixtures to countries outside of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development unless those nations meet “strict” environmental conditions and agree to treat the waste “in an environmentally sound manner,” the parliament said in a news release.
The U.K. High Court in a decision released Nov. 15 said Senegalese oil trading company Der Mond Oil and Gas couldn't rely on sanctions as a reason for not paying Russian company Litasco SA for money due under an oil sale contract.
The U.K. this week amended Russia- and Iran-related sanctions entries. The changes were to identifying information for Irina Anatolievna Kostenko under its Russia sanctions regime and to the Ya Mahdi Industries Group under Iran.
European countries not in the EU aligned with two recent sanctions moves from the European Council concerning the situations in Myanmar and Guinea, the council announced.
The U.K. and Florida signed the seventh UK-U.S. state-level Memorandum of Understanding on Nov. 14, the Department for International Trade announced. U.K. Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the deal, which is "targeted at high-potential sectors such as space and fintech and designed to boost exports and investment between the UK and Florida." Florida joins Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington as the U.S. states that have an MOU with the U.K.
Members of the European Parliament are pushing member states to more strictly enforce sanctions against Russia, saying “loopholes” are still allowing Russia to reap revenue from its oil sales and import export-controlled electronics. In a resolution adopted by the parliament last week, the body called for a lower price cap on Russian oil and petroleum products and a new mechanism to oversee member states’ sanctions enforcement.
The European Commission is proposing an update to its intermodal freight regulations that it hopes will make EU freight movement more efficient, competitive and climate-friendly. The proposal, released last week, would update the EU’s current Combined Transport Directive -- an “outdated” freight transportation regulation last amended in 1992 -- by incentivizing the use of “intermodal operations that contribute the most to making freight transport more sustainable,” the commission said.