The United States, European Union, and United Kingdom have significantly escalated Russia-related sanctions the past month, including the Trump Administration’s first sanctions directly imposed on Russia. These coordinated actions—which particularly target the Russian energy sector—indicate that Russia sanctions remain on the geopolitical agenda and require multinational companies to remain vigilant in their compliance with those

On October 15, 2025, the UK announced a significant expansion of its Russia-related sanctions regime, designating Lukoil and Rosneft—Russia’s two largest oil companies—as asset freeze targets.

This is the first time Lukoil and Rosneft have been subjected to full asset freezing sanctions by any of the UK, U.S., or EU, and follows earlier UK measures

The snapback of UN sanctions on Iran took effect on September 27, 2025, after the E3 (France, Germany, UK) triggered the mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and the Security Council failed to extend sanctions relief. Please see our previous Alert on the snapback process and what this could mean for global businesses.

The

In November 2024, the UK Government introduced regulations which granted its financial sanctions regulator – the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) – greater intelligence gathering and enforcement powers. Our previous blog post on these amendments can be found here.

The changes included the extension of mandatory financial sanctions reporting obligations (“

On May 23, 2025, the U.S. Departments of State (“State”) and the Treasury (“Treasury”) took actions that resulted in immediate sanctions relief for Syria. Specifically, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued General License 25 (“GL 25”) pursuant to the Syrian Sanctions Regulations (“SySR”), the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations (“NPWMD”), the

On January 6, 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Syria General License 24, which authorizes transactions with governing institutions in Syria and certain activities related to energy and personal remittances. OFAC explained it issued General License 24 in light of the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government and

On November 13, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s (“Treasury’s”) Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) updated its FAQs for insurers in a long-awaited move to modernize its published sanctions compliance guidance for the insurance industry.  None of the industry-specific FAQs had been updated since January 2015, and many had not been amended in

On July 22, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) released guidance (“Guidance”) on how it will implement the new authority it was granted in the April 24, 2024 National Security Supplemental (“the Act”).  The Act extended the statute of limitations for civil, criminal, and forfeiture violations of sanctions

An overview on new Russian sanctions and export controls issued by the U.S. (OFAC and BIS) and the UK focusing on the Russian financial, military, and LNG industries.

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