The Biden administration should continue to designate members of Russia’s Wagner Group, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said last week, adding that Russia's President Vladimir Putin is using the military company as a “weapon of malign influence.” McCaul on May 25 called for “the expanded use of sanctions to target Wagner and its enablers throughout Africa, in Ukraine and around the globe.” The Treasury Department last week sanctioned a senior Mali-based Wagner Group official (see 2305250045).

The Office of Foreign Assets Control published four previously issued general licenses under its Cyber-Related, Non-Proliferation, and Hostages and Wrongfully Detained U.S. Nationals sanctions programs. The full text of each license is available in the notice.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov, a Mali-based official with the sanctioned Russian private military company Wagner Group. Maslov purportedly leads the Wagner Group’s mercenary units in Mali, working as part of an organization that has committed “widespread human rights abuses” and may be trying to evade sanctions on imports of military equipment for use against Ukraine, the Treasury Department said.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control on May 25 removed more than 20 entries from its Specially Designated Nationals List. The entries were originally added for counter-narcotics sanctions reasons and include people and companies located in Colombia and Venezuela. OFAC didn’t provide more information.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned 26 people and entities with ties to the terrorist group al-Shabaab, including 15 “financial facilitators and operatives,” four smugglers of charcoal from Somalia and seven of their associated companies. OFAC said the designations target “key regional leaders, affiliates, and members” of the terrorist group in Somalia. Among those sanctioned are al-Shabaab commanders, an intelligence officer, a donations collector and various charcoal traders and their companies.

The U.N. Security Council this week updated its recommendations on procedures and notification requirements related to inspections of ships suspected of carrying charcoal from Somalia or seizures of charcoal from Somalia. The guidance is meant to help U.N. states “take the necessary steps to ensure full and effective implementation of the ban” on Somalia charcoal and outlines steps countries should take before and after ship inspections.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned four entities and one person involved in “obfuscated revenue generation” and cyber activities to support the North Korean government. The designations target the Pyongyang University of Automation, one of North Korea’s “premier cyber instruction institutions,” along with the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau and its "subordinate cyber unit," the 110th Research Center, which are controlled by North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, the country’s intelligence bureau. OFAC also sanctioned Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, which employs delegations of North Korean information technology workers in Russia and Laos, as well as North Korean national ​​Kim Sang Man, who helps pay salaries to family members of Chinyong’s overseas workers.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control again renewed a general license authorizing certain transactions between certain companies and Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., Venezuela’s state-run energy company. General License No. 8L, which replaces No. 8K (see 2211280042), authorizes transactions between PdVSA and Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Weatherford International, with certain restrictions, through 12:01 a.m. EST Nov. 19. The license was scheduled to expire May 26.

The Treasury Department ‘understands” the challenges faced by banks, law firms, companies and others in trying to comply with multiple Russian sanctions regimes across the U.S., the EU and elsewhere, and is working to better align those restrictions to alleviate some headaches, said Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Nelson, speaking during a law conference in Washington last week, said the agency is “working hard” to harmonize “our actions, our targets, the guidance that we're providing so that they are consistent across our jurisdictions.”

The Group of 7 price cap on Russian oil has helped to decrease the Russian government’s oil revenues by more than 40% from January to March, compared with the same period last year, the Treasury Department said in a May 18 progress report on the price cap. “Despite widespread initial market skepticism around the price cap, market participants and geopolitical analysts have now acknowledged that the price cap is accomplishing both of its goals,” Treasury said, adding that the strategy has been a “success.” The report, issued nearly one year after G-7 countries first endorsed the cap, outlines Treasury’s take on the economic impact of the cap and stresses that the U.S. and allies will “continue to coordinate to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement of the policy, including countering evasion of these caps while avoiding spillover effects and maintaining global energy security.