In recent weeks the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued new guidance applicable to corporate anti-corruption compliance programs. Unfortunately, this guidance manifests a continued use by the government of ambiguous and broad language, and serves mostly to emphasize yet again the broad discretion claimed… Read more
On July 16, 2020, the European Court of Justice struck down the popular EU-U.S. Privacy Shield tool, a cross-border data transfer mechanism, due to a determination that the United States fails to adequately uphold EU privacy laws. The court found that the Privacy Shield does not provide sufficient protections… Read more
On July 7, 2020, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that Seattle-based e-commerce retailer Amazon would pay a $134,523 penalty for alleged violations of multiple OFAC sanctions programs and the failure to timely report hundreds of transactions pursuant to an OFAC general license. Between 2011 and 2018,… Read more
The United Kingdom on July 6, 2020, designated 49 individuals and organizations under a new human rights sanctions regime established on the same day. The UK’s Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 target human rights violations “carried out by or on behalf of a State.” This is the first… Read more
On July 1, 2020, the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security jointly issued an advisory, “Risks and Considerations for Businesses with Supply Chain Exposure to Entities Engaged in Forced Labor and Other Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang” (the “Advisory”). The Advisory highlights the risks for businesses… Read more
The USMCA, formally known as the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada, officially entered into force on July 1, 2020. The same day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published an interim final rule amending the CBP regulations to add a new… Read more
On June 29, 2020, the new military end use/end user rule for China, Russia, and Venezuela in Section 744.21 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) went into effect. (Please see here for our prior post detailing changes to Section 744.21.) In connection with this new rule, the Department of… Read more
In connection with China’s new Hong Kong national security law, the U.S. Government is taking steps to revoke the differential treatment afforded to Hong Kong in relation to China. On June 29, 2020, the Department of State announced that it would end exports of U.S.-origin defense equipment to Hong… Read more
On Monday, June 15, 2020, the United States Supreme Court resolved a circuit split and issued a landmark decision by a 6-3 vote, explaining that Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex extends to protect individuals from discrimination because of their sexual orientation or transgender status. The… Read more
On June 17, 2020, the Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS) published a Final Rule identifying a narrow group of products as “emerging technologies” pursuant to the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (ECRA). This is the first group of emerging technologies that has been identified pursuant to the… Read more
Earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Notice 2020-39 which postpones certain deadlines and provides other relief for Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs) and their investors in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The impact of COVID-19 on real estate investment and the general… Read more
McGinnis Lochridge Special Counsel Jamie Joiner, a member of the firm’s International Trade and Transactions Practice Group, authored the “Compliance for Exporters and Freight-Forwarders: A Shared Approach” chapter of The Export Compliance Manager’s Handbook, second edition, recently published by WorldECR. In the Handbook, Joiner explains why exporters and freight-forwarders… Read more