International

Subscribe to International

On July 17, 2017, the U.S. State Department certified that Iran continues to meet the conditions of the Iran nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. As a result, for the next 90 days, the United States will maintain significant reductions in its sanctions against Iran as provided in the JCPOA. Among other things, those provisions allow non-U.S. companies to do business in Iran. The State Department’s action signals that for now, State believes that the JCPOA is the right U.S. policy toward Iran.
Continue Reading One Year From Now, You May Be Out of Iran: Trump Administration Policy and the Timeline for Snapback

  • A President Trump will have authority to reinstate sanctions lifted by the Iran Nuclear Deal as well as revoke certain authorizations provided for business with Iran.
  • Several economic and geopolitical factors may cause Mr. Trump to reconsider or mitigate his approach to the Iran Nuclear Deal.
  • Companies should prepare to respond quickly to any changes.

Maybe you’ve seen it before, the series of characters that represents upsetting the whole game, flipping the table:

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

These days, where words fail, we have emojis.  And here they describe what a President Trump may do to the carefully planned Iran Nuclear Deal. One year after the implementation of the Iran Nuclear Deal (much discussed, at least in our blog), Mr. Trump will take office. At that time, we will see whether his campaign rhetoric against Iran becomes policy action or whether it will be tempered by geopolitical and business realities.Continue Reading The Table Flip: Trump, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and American Business

On January 16, 2016, two NFL playoff games and a historic revision of U.S. foreign policy took place. Many of us enjoyed the first two (did you see that last-second touchdown pass?!) but did not pay close attention as the United States lifted many of its secondary sanctions against Iran. Even those normally attentive to sanctions news had already heard (including by reading and excitedly discussing this blog) that things were not going to change that much for U.S. persons.
Continue Reading Airplanes, Pistachios, and a New Burger Joint in Tehran: What Changes for the United States Under Lighter Iran Sanctions

By: Scott Maberry and Mark Jensen

People who practice U.S. economic sanctions law like to talk about how sanctions are policy-oriented, or an engine of U.S. foreign policy.  Whereas some laws may be more opaquely political, economic sanctions and embargoes seem to express most bluntly how international leverage works through regulation.  And yet, a few recent regulatory developments show that the direction that sanctions take is not always predictable.
…
Continue Reading OFAC Gets Hot, Bothered on Iran and Cuba: How Economic Sanctions Work Today

By: John M. Hynes

The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has issued welcome guidance for those wishing to provide personal communications services or software to individuals in Iran. On March 20, 2012, OFAC released interpretive guidance regarding the scope of the personal communications general and specific licenses found in Section 560.540 of the Iranian Transactions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 560 (“ITR”). On the same day, OFAC also revised the ITR definition of the term “entity owned or controlled by the Government of Iran”.

While the personal communications licenses remain limited in scope, OFAC’s new interpretive guidance should help exporters understand what specific services and software may be provided to individuals in Iran. …
Continue Reading OFAC Provides Much Needed Guidance for Anyone Wishing to Export Personal Communications Services or Software to Iran