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While many venture capitalists and private equity sponsors are aware the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) has authority to review inbound investments in certain sensitive U.S. industries, many transaction parties may be unaware of CFIUS’s jurisdiction to also review the national security risks presented by real estate transactions involving foreign persons. Because real estate transactions do not trigger CFIUS’s mandatory filing requirements, it is uncommon for transaction parties to proactively seek CFIUS review of these deals.Continue Reading Know Thy Neighbor as Thyself: CFIUS Considerations in Commercial Real Estate Transactions

On Monday, October 24, 2022, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against two alleged Chinese intelligence officers for bribing and stealing documents to obstruct the criminal investigation of, reportedly, Huawei (while the complaint does not name Huawei, it is the company according to multiple reports).Continue Reading Bribes, Bitcoin and Obstruction: DOJ Announces Charges Against Chinese Agents for Trying to Impede Investigation of Huawei

On July 7, 2022, the Treasury Department laid out how it would work with its overseas counterparts and in international forums as the U.S. studies cryptocurrencies to set up a possible regulatory regime. This framework is the first executive agency response as mandated President Biden’s March executive order on crypto that we wrote about here.Continue Reading Treasury Department Seeks to Coordinate Globally on Crypto Regulation

On May 6, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated a cryptocurrency mixer, Blender.io, as a Specially Designated National (SDN). That sanction follows a series of enforcements and sanctions which we have previously discussed here and here.Continue Reading The Crypto Enthusiast and The Regulator: What OFAC is, Could Be, and Should Be Doing to Regulate CryptoCurrencies

Yesterday, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions on SUEX OTC, S.R.O, a cryptocurrency exchange, for its role in laundering money to ransomware attackers. According to OFAC, SUEX facilitated criminal transactions involving at least eight ransomware variants and 40% of SUEX’s known transaction history involved bad actors. The designation of SUEX is the first time OFAC has sanctioned a virtual currency platform – and this approach may prove to be a useful regulatory tool to make malicious cyberactivity less profitable and therefore deter cyber-criminals. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government is “committed to using the full range of measures, to include sanctions and regulatory tools, to disrupt, deter, and prevent ransomware attack[s].”
Continue Reading First OFAC Sanctions Against a Cryptocurrency Exchange: Could the Designation of SUEX Signal an Enforcement Trend to Combat Cybercrime?

Russian President Vladmir Putin has directed his government to develop a state-backed cryptocurrency, according to a Financial Times report published on January 2nd. A Putin advisor says that the “Crypto-rouble” could be used to “settle accounts with our counterparties all over the world with no regard for sanctions.” He added that Russia’s cryptocurrency would be “the same rouble, but its circulation would be restricted in a certain way.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. Broadly, establishing a cryptocurrency that the Kremlin can track defeats two of the main purposes of cryptocurrency: to provide anonymity and to remove government central banks from transactions.
Continue Reading Could the Crypto-Rouble Spell Crypto-Trouble for Sanctions?