Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has announced the creation of the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), which will unite AI creators and users, academics, government and industry researchers, and civil society organizations in support of the development and deployment of safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI). The consortium will be housed under the U.S. AI Safety Institute (USAISI) and will contribute to priority actions outlined in President Biden’s Executive Order, including developing guidelines for red-teaming, capability evaluations, risk management, safety and security, and watermarking synthetic content.
A Bipartisan group of Senators has penned a letter to Andrea Gacki, Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), expressing serious concerns about the delay in implementing the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Whistleblower Improvement Act. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Elizabeth Warren (D-CA), and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) wrote noting the Act, passed passed over three years ago as part of the Corporate Transparency Act and later strengthened in 2022, aimed to incentivize whistleblowers to report sanctions violations and combat money laundering effectively.
Caroline Tuckett and Kevin Rowlands discuss the prospects of Russia's continued adherence to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other disturbing developments in the "rules-based" maritime order. An article for Britian's Royal United Services Institure notes Russian threats to the right of innocent passage, as provided for under UNCLOS Article 8 (2).
Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection hosted her Canadian and U.S. counterparts for the fourth meeting of the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee. Participants agreed on greater collaboration on testing protocols and recovery initiatives, as well as enhanced reporting and participation in the U.S. ATF's e-Trace weapons tracing program.
Five US venture capital firms invested at least $3 billion in Chinese critical technology companies, many aiding the Chinese military, surveillance state or Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang, according to a new report from the House Select Committee on China.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has taken its second price cap enforcement action of 2024, imposing sanctions on four entities and identifying one vessel as blocked property. OFAC is also issuing two new determinations that implement G7 commitments to ban the importation of Russian diamonds.
The Foreign Investment Regulations Putting Buyers, Sellers, and M&A Practitioners at Risk: In recent memory, enforcement of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS” or the “Committee”) regulations has been mostly limited and sporadic. But recently, the U.S. government is reviving and enhancing these regulations as a direct response to the national security and foreign policy concerns ensuing from an increasingly tumultuous geopolitical environment. A CFIUS due diligence review is fundamentally related to export control laws and regulations — even for businesses that have never engaged in any exports.
Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party wrote to the Departments of Defense and Transportation, exposing critical deficiencies in the United States’ military sealift capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. Mr. Gallagher calls for an immediate expansion of U.S. sealift capacity, requesting information from the Departments about the current sealift fleet and plans for fleet expansion
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to combat and deter money laundering in the U.S. residential real estate sector by increasing transparency. The proposed rule would require certain professionals involved in real estate closings and settlements to report information to FinCEN about non-financed transfers of residential real estate to legal entities or trusts.
The Treasury Department published the 2024 National Risk Assessments on Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Proliferation Financing. Released February 7, 2024, these reports highlight the most significant illicit finance threats, vulnerabilities, and risks facing the United States. The reports detail recent, significant updates to the U.S. anti-money laundering/counter-financing of terrorism framework and explain changes to the illicit finance risk environment. These include the ongoing fentanyl crisis, foreign and domestic terrorist attacks and related financing, increased potency of ransomware attacks, the growth of professional money laundering, and continued digitization of payments and financial services.
The United States today announced the successful resolution of the eighth USMCA facility-specific Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM) petition regarding the facility operated by Goodyear-SLP, S. de R.L. de C.V. in the city and state of San Luis Potosí, where workers were previously denied their freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. In 2019 US lawmakers threatened to hold up ratification of the USMCA over pay and conditions at the plant. Reporting by Reuters at the time suggested wages at the facility are range from $2 to $6 an hour. By comparison Goodyear workers in the US reportedly receive a basic wage of $23 per hour.
The Commerce Department is currently seeking applications for membership on the United States Investment Advisory Council. The purpose of the Council is to advise the Secretary of Commerce on strategies to attract and retain foreign direct investment to the United States.
The proposed rule would amend the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) Defense Priorities and Allocations System (DPAS) regulation by providing administrative changes to well-established standards and procedures. This proposed rule would: clarify existing standards and procedures by which BIS may provide Special Priorities Assistance (SPA); revise Schedule I to provide transparency and differentiation between other departments’ priorities jurisdiction and the Department of Commerce’s jurisdiction; and provide technical edits to reflect certain non-substantive updates since the DPAS regulation was last amended in 2014, including providing updated contact information, legal citations, and definitions.
A citizen of the United States and the Republic of Taiwan, residing in Taiwan, pleaded guilty January 31 to a federal conspiracy charge, related to the export of defense materials to Iran 20 years ago. The defendant had remained a fugitive until his arrest on April 10, 2023, at Rome-Fiumicino International Airport in Italy and subsequent extradition to the United States.
The Justice Department announced the unsealing of three federal cases, across two U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, as the most recent in a series of efforts to combat the illicit trafficking of Iranian oil that funds Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and providing lethal support to terrorist organizations abroad Seven defendants are charged in the Southern district of New York, along with the seizure of $108 million. Two more defendants were named in a case filed in the District of Columbia, along with a forfeiture complaint for 500,000 barrels of oil in transit.
Four Chinese nationals are charged in an indictment in the District of Columbia with various federal crimes related to a years-long conspiracy to unlawfully export and smuggle U.S.-origin electronic components from the United States to Iran.
A British man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for attempting to export an Industrial Microwave System (IMS) and counter-drone system from the United States to Iran, without first obtaining the requisite license from the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Saber Fakih was arrested in the United Kingdom pursuant to a U.S. Extradition Request on or about February 10, 2021. On January 25, 2022, he entered a plea of guilty to count two of the indictment in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. In addition to the prison term, Saber Fakih was ordered to serve three years of supervised release.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a markup to consider various measures regarding export controls, prohibiting US contributions to UNRWA, restricting Iran’s access to U.S. goods and technology to manufacture missiles and long-range drones, designating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, and enhancing efforts to end international human trafficking on Tuesday, February 6th.
The Department of Defense released an updated blacklist with more than a dozen new Chinese companies on it, including memory chip maker YMTC, artificial intelligence company Megvii, LiDAR maker Hesai Technology and tech company NetPosa. Section 1260H of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry NDAA for FY21 (Pub. L. 116–283) directs the Secretary of Defense to continue to list “Chinese military companies” (CMCs) annually until December 31, 2030.
February 1, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published the Price Cap Coalition Compliance and Enforcement Alert. This alert includes an overview of key OPC evasion methods and recommendations for identifying such methods and mitigating their risks and negative impacts, and Information on how to report OPC suspected breaches across the Price Cap Coalition.