Dear Colleagues
On February 21, 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order (“EO”) that imposes a territorial embargo on what Russia is now calling the Donetsk People’s Republic (“DNR”) and Luhansk People’s Republic (“LNR”) in eastern Ukraine. Likewise, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the United Kingdom all imposed similar sanctions on Russia.
Both the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) of the U.S. Commerce Department have issued additional export restrictions on Russia, DNR and LNR regions and Belarus. These restrictions are in addition to the export restrictions that already existed previously for the Crimea Region of Ukraine.
More specifically:
Russia — OFAC imposed sanctions targeting:
- Russia’s ability to finance aggression against its neighbors by sanctioning the Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank (VEB) and Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), along with 42 of their subsidiaries;
- Influential Russians and their family members in Putin’s inner circle and certain Russian-flagged vessels by adding them to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (“SDN List”);
- Russian sovereign debt traded on secondary markets.
As a result of EO 14065, U.S. Persons are now prohibited from any of the following types of business transactions among others:
- Making any new investment in the DNR or LNR regions;
- Importation into the United States of goods, services, or technology from the DNR or LNR regions;
- Exportation, directly or indirectly of goods, services, or technology to the DNR or LNR regions;
- Approving, financing, or guaranteeing any transactions with the DNR or LNR region that would be prohibited if performed by a U.S. person or from the United States.
OFAC also sanctioned certain Belarussian parties as a result of Belarus’ support for and facilitation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia — BIS
- Imposed new Commerce Control List (“CCL”) based license requirements for Russia;
- Applied a review policy of denial to license applications for exports, reexports to, or transfers within Russia;
- Expanded existing Russia ‘military end use’ and ‘military end user’ control scope for all items subject to the EAR;
- Added two new Foreign Direct Product (“FDP”) Rules specific to Russia and Russian ‘military end users’;
- Created a new FDP rule for all of Russia (“Russia FDP rule”)
- Created a new foreign direct product rule for Russian military end users (“Russia-MEU FDP rule”)
- Imposed Partner Country Exclusion from Russia and Russian-MEU FDP rules
- Significantly restricted the use of EAR license exceptions for Russian exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country);
- Added 49 entities to the Entity List and applied the Entity List footnote 3 designation.
The same restrictions that are applicable to Russia are now applicable to Belarus.
What does this mean for Berkeley Lab?
- Continue to conduct restricted party screening and monitor dynamic alerts.
- Contact us if:
- You Division/Functional Area has any agreements, engagements or transactions with parties in any of these countries, including procurement of items or services, or exports of items or services
- Anyone within your Division/Functional Area is traveling to these countries
- There are potential positive restricted party screening matches
The Export Compliance Office can be contacted at exportcontrol@lbl.gov.
Please note this situation is still developing and we are monitoring the situation daily.