On 31 October 2021, the EU and US issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached an agreement to end their dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs. This agreement removes the US “Section 232” tariffs on imports of EU steel and aluminium, imposed during the Trump administration, whilst the EU has agreed to suspend additional duties imposed on US goods in retaliation. Both sides have also agreed to suspend disputes initiated against each other at the WTO in relation to the tariffs.
This week’s discussion in the ‘This Week in Government Enforcement’ series will cover the following:
• Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco on corporate enforcement priorities under the Biden Administration
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is targeting big tech
o What do they want and why do they want it?
o How should tech firms prepare, whether they receive a request from CFPB or not?
In November, the United States announced that Ethiopia, Guinea and Mali would be terminated from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (“AGOA”) trade preference program, unless they took urgent action to meet eligibility criteria by 1 January 2022. AGOA eligibility requirements include, among other things, that countries must follow the rule of law and implement economic policies that reduce poverty and combat corruption and bribery. Countries must also protect internationally recognized human and worker rights, and must not engage in activities that undermine national security interests.
Noncitizen travelers can pack their bags. With certain requirements, noncitizen travelers will be allowed to travel to the US as of November 8, 2021, under President Biden’s Proclamation on Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During the COVID-19 Pandemic. The new rules, which focus on the vaccination status of noncitizen travelers, replace the country specific restrictions that have been in place since March 2020. The proclamation also contains limited exceptions within the proclamation for noncitizen travelers who have not been vaccinated.
Two years ago, on 5 November 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the formation of the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF). DOJ press releases indicated the purpose was to create a joint, collaborative interagency partnership focused on deterring, detecting, investigating, and prosecuting antitrust crimes. The Strike Force has prosecutors from 22 US Attorneys’ Offices and 7 national law enforcement partner agencies, including the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Inspectors General for multiple Federal agencies. To date, the PCSF is active in almost a quarter of US judicial districts and coordinates with many US agencies and offices.
Financial crime remains at the top of the regulatory agenda across the globe. As responses to the pandemic stabilise, and following some high-profile global incidents, regulators face renewed pressure to manage financial crime more effectively through robust supervision and enforcement. In the October 2021 edition of the City Library’s Compliance Officer Bulletin, our business crime, regulatory and cybersecurity lawyers explore the latest developments in anti-money laundering and financial crime in a series of articles
Between maintaining business continuity and keeping your workforce safe, we know there’s been little time to track the rapidly changing employment law landscape in California — with our “quick hits” format, we will provide a content-rich presentation complete with practical takeaways in 75 minutes. This webinar is designed to ensure that California in-house counsel are up to speed on the top employment law developments of 2021 and are prepared for what’s on the horizon in 2022.
The Internal Revenue Service has issued final regulations limiting the IRS’s ability to hire private attorneys as contractors. The final regulations, published on 7 September 2021, finalize proposed regulations published on 7 August 2020.
On October 15, 2021, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published sanctions compliance guidance for the virtual currency industry (the “Guidance”), given that “the growing prevalence of virtual currency … brings greater exposure to sanctions risk.” This Guidance follows (1) the recent and first-ever designation of a virtual currency exchange by the OFAC (see our recent post on this here), and (2) the launch of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to tackle criminal misuses of cryptocurrency (see a description of this new team on our Blockchain blog, available here).
On October 22, 2021, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) published a Proposed Rule to outline potential changes it is considering making to the Export Administration Regulations in an effort to clarify and expand the restrictions on the availability of License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization for the export, reexport, and in-country transfer of certain items. BIS is seeking public comments on these proposed changes by December 6, 2021.