Venezuela was denied a stay of a more than $234 million arbitration award payment to Luxembourg-based steel pipe and tube supplier Tenaris S.A. since the stay would be redundant due to current restrictions on the payment, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in a March 29 decision. Due to current Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions on Venezuela, enforcement of the award cannot be completed until Tenaris receives a license from OFAC or until U.S. sanctions on Venezuela are lifted entirely. Judge Carl Nichols found that with the OFAC restrictions, Venezuela is not required to pay until Tenaris receives the agency's permission, so a stay “does nothing to alter the status quo.” The arbitration payment was awarded to Tenaris by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes for Venezuela's expropriation of Tenaris assets without compensation.

Russian national Oleg Vladislavovich Nikitin, general director of St. Petersburg, Russia-based energy company KS Engineering, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to conspiracy to skirt export controls, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia announced in a press release. Nikitin, admitted to attempting to sell a power turbine to a Russian company attempting to use it on an Arctic deepwater drilling platform -- a process banned by the Commerce Department without a license. An unnamed Russian government-controlled business contracted with Nikitin to buy the turbine from a U.S. manufacturer for $17.3 million. Nikitin, along with two others, was arrested in Savannah, Georgia, attempting to carry out the transaction for the turbine.

The Bureau of Industry and Security revoked export privileges for five people after they were convicted of violating various export control laws, including illegal shipments of guns, ammunition and other military items, BIS said in March 25 orders.

Ten Iranian nationals are charged with running a 20-year scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran by disguising more than $300 million worth of transactions, the Department of Justice said in a March 19 news release. The Iranian citizens allegedly made the purchases, including two $25 million oil tankers, on Iran's behalf via front companies in Los Angeles, Canada, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, DOJ said. The U.S. District Court of Los Angeles case, filed in October 2020, was unsealed on March 19. A separate forfeiture complaint was filed the same day on the same individuals, seeking a money laundering penalty of $157,332,367. The individuals are accused of violating the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, Iranian Financial Sanctions Regulations and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. They face a maximum of 20 years in federal prison if convicted, although they are believed to be located outside the U.S.

The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a California-based satellite communications company $122,000 for illegally exporting controlled goods to Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Brazil. BIS said the company, Comtech Xicom Technology, exported more than $150,000 worth of “traveling wave tubes” (TWT) without licenses, a March 18 order said.

Dual U.S.-Mexican citizen Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez pleaded guilty on March 12 to engaging in financial dealings with Mexican companies that had been identified as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers, the Department of Justice announced in a press release. Oseguera Gonzalez, the daughter of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion head Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, aka “El Mencho,” faces a maximum of up to 30 years in prison and is set to face sentencing on June 11. She pleaded guilty to violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by engaging in property transactions with six Mexican businesses that had been designated by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Florida resident Victor Mones Coro was sentenced to 55 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Venezuela by chartering private flights for top Venezuelan officials, the Department of Justice said March 17. Sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mones Coro provided millions of dollars in charter flight services to former Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, his frontman Samark Lopez Bello, Venezuelan Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 campaign for president. The chartered flights violate the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions on the Venezuelan officials for their role in subverting democracy and proliferating authoritarianism. Mones Coro also will pay a $250,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control will allow for stock in Luokung Technology to be traded on U.S. exchanges until May 8, the company said in a March 11 news release. Luokung was previously designated as a Chinese military company and was scheduled for delisting on the NASDAQ on March 15. The company is fighting the designation in court, though a temporary restraining order request was dropped at Luokung's request due to the OFAC decision on March 11. Another Chinese company, Xiaomi, was recently granted a preliminary injunction over its designation (see 2103150035). Due to news of the court ruling in Xiaomi's favor, Luokung's stock shot up March 15, according to a press report on the NASDAQ website.

Fujairah International Oil & Gas Corporation, an oil company owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, the ruler of the emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, claims that it owns oil seized by the U.S. Filing their ownership claim in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Fujairah said it purchased the oil from an undisclosed Iraqi supplier and sold it to an unidentified Chinese buyer, where the oil was heading when it was seized. The Department of Justice alleges Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and IRGC-Qods Force, both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, schemed to deliver the oil to a customer abroad and that the origins of the oil were disguised using ship-to-ship transfers, falsified documents, and other means to trick the owners of the Liberia-flagged Achilleas -- the ship the oil was seized on -- into transporting the oil (see 2102030018).

Alex Yun Cheong Yue was sentenced March 3 in federal court in Boston for illegally exporting cesium atomic clocks to Hong Kong, the Department of Justice announced March 5. The South El Monte, California, man was sentenced to time-served of one day along with three years of supervised release, one year of which must be served in home confinement, and is prohibited from engaging in any import or export business during the supervised released time. Yue was arrested and charged in 2019 and pleaded guilty in August 2020 to conspiring to procure the cesium atomic clocks and export them to Hong Kong without obtaining the required export licenses. Wai Kay Victor Zee of Hong Kong and Premium Tech Systems, Ltd. also were charged (see 2008110041). Cesium atomic clocks are used in global positioning systems, network timing protocols, encryption programs and national defense and space applications.