Category: z-Exclude

The United States today announced the unsealing of a warrant for the seizure of a Boeing 737-7JU aircraft owned by PJSC Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft), a Russian integrated energy company headquartered in Moscow, Russia, headed by Igor Ivanovich Sechin. According to court documents, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security issued sanctions against Russia. The sanctions impose export controls and license requirements to protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The Russia sanctions expanded prohibitions on the export, reexport or in-country transfer of, among other things, U.S.-manufactured aircraft to or within Russia without a valid license or license exception for aircraft owned or controlled, or under charter or lease, by Russia and/or Russian nationals. In this case, these sanctions bar a plane that was built or manufactured in the United States from entering Russia without a valid license. 

  Leading aggregator Finsure Group has warned that the Reserve Bank of Australia is getting closer to the “tipping point” with its increases to official interest rates, noting how the central bank would need to be careful about inflicting further pain on mortgage holders. Finsure CEO Simon Bednar (pictured above) said the RBA needed to be more cautious about lifting the cash rate going forward or risk seriously denting consumer confidence and causing an economic slowdown. “The RBA is getting…

The U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have entered into a consent decree with the City of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act regarding the city’s water pollution control facility that discharges undertreated effluent into Massachusetts Bay.

Undertreated sewage from the city’s existing water treatment facility results in a variety of harmful discharges into Massachusetts Bay, including disease causing organisms and toxic pollutants.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Blinken revealed that he and Lavrov “spoke briefly” on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in India. Among other things, the American official said he had “raised the wrongful detention of Paul Whelan,” a former US Marine currently serving a 16-year prison term in Russia for espionage. “The United States has put forward a serious proposal. Moscow should accept it,” Blinken added. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denied those claims on Friday, saying she had asked Lavrov about the exchange with Blinken. The top Russian diplomat told her that his American counterpart had not brought up Whelan’s case, with Zakharova describing Blinken’s statement as “lies” and an example of “astounding” behavior by the US government.

WASHINGTON — All F-35 fighter jets should be retrofitted within 90 days with a fix intended to solve a potential engine vibration problem, the F-35 Joint Program Office said Thursday.

The JPO issued an order Wednesday evening recommending the fleetwide retrofit — globally, not just American aircraft — over the next three months, as well as immediately putting it in place for a “small number” of fighters that have been grounded since December.

In a statement to reporters on Thursday, the JPO said it is not grounding other F-35s, aside from the newly built fighters believed to be susceptible to the vibration problem in their Pratt & Whitney-made F135 engines and that have been grounded for more than two and a half months.

The office also said it plans to work with the military services flying the F-35 and international partners to ensure they understand the technical order. “The safety of flight crews is the JPO’s primary concern,” the JPO said.

Sean Colville Niven has been permanently banned from providing financial services and engaging in credit activities, after he was convicted in the Perth Magistrates Court for two counts of offences contrary to the Bankruptcy Act. The court found Niven guilty of making a declaration that he knew was false, and for disposing of property intending to defraud creditors.

On the 25th of February 2023, the European Union (EU) introduced its 10th sanctions package since the invasion of Ukraine. Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy stated that the new sanctions were addressed to those “instrumental” in the war’s continuation.

The measures target a further 87 individuals and 34 entities in the political, economic and military sectors, bringing the total number to 1,473 and 205 respectively.

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued guidance on Monday giving all federal agencies 30 days to wipe TikTok from employees’ devices. Mandated by Congress, the move follows similar guidance by the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, all of which cited alleged data harvesting by the Chinese-developed app. “How unsure of itself can the world’s top superpower be to fear a favorite app of young people like that?” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a press briefing on Tuesday. 

According to court documents, Jo Ann Macrina, 66, of Daytona Beach, Florida, served as the Commissioner of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management from 2011 through May 2016. During Macrina’s tenure, the City of Atlanta awarded millions of dollars in contracts to an architectural, design, and construction management and services firm based in Atlanta. Macrina took multiple steps to steer lucrative contracts toward the firm’s joint venture. Those actions included casting aside prior final scores ranking potential vendors where the joint venture ranked near the bottom, replacing two evaluators who previously represented the Department of Watershed Management with herself and Macrina’s employee, and scoring the joint venture higher than all other evaluators during a reevaluation.

In exchange for providing the firm’s executive vice president with access to confidential information and preferential treatment on City of Atlanta projects, Macrina was offered a job and accepted things of value. For instance, Macrina accepted $10,000 in cash, a diamond ring, a room at a luxury hotel in Dubai, and landscaping work at her home from the firm’s executive vice president either directly or through another employee of the firm. Shortly after Macrina’s employment with the City of Atlanta ended, she began working for the firm. Between June 2016 and September 2016, the firm and its executive vice president paid Macrina $30,000 in four separate payments.

On Feb. 22, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, aka Vampiro de Monserrat Criminales (Arevalo-Chavez), Walter Yovani Hernandez-Rivera, aka Baxter de Park View and Bastard de Park View (Hernandez-Rivera), and Marlon Antonio Menjivar-Portillo, aka Rojo de Park View (Menjivar-Portillo), were located by Mexican authorities and expelled from Mexico via the United States. When Arevalo-Chavez, Hernandez-Rivera, and Menjivar-Portillo arrived at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, they were placed under arrest by the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Earlier today, the defendants had their initial appearances in the Southern District of Texas, pending removal to the Eastern District of New York..

The strike force’s goal is to “…protect U.S. national security by preventing …sensitive technologies from being used for malign purposes” by “nation-state adversaries” such as China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. The “sensitive technologies” at issue include supercomputing and “exascale” computing, quantum computing, biosciences, and, of course, artificial intelligence.

This development reflects the Administration’s continuing focus on using export control policy and enforcement to advance its national security priorities—of which economic security has become a key subset. The Administration has used the Foreign Direct Product Rule and coordinated its use, particularly regarding advanced semiconductor technology and related tooling, among its allies and partners outside of the traditional multilateral frameworks.  This is yet another example of how the Administration has scaled-up its use of export controls to generate desired outcomes in the areas of technology security and economic competitiveness – both national security priorities – vis-à-vis, in particular, China. The creation of the Disruptive Technologies Strike Force is the latest step by the Administration toward institutionalizing a “whole of government” approach to its novel use of export control policy and enforcement to counter this geopolitical rival.  

According to court documents, Jessie R. Benton, 45, of The Woodlands, schemed with another political advisor to funnel political contributions to a 2016 presidential campaign from a Russian national seeking to meet and take a picture with the presidential candidate. Benton arranged for the Russian national – whose nationality Benton concealed from the campaign and the candidate – to attend a campaign fundraising event and to take a picture with the candidate.

As such attendance and engagement required a contribution, Benton caused the Russian national to wire $100,000 to Benton’s political consulting firm to make an illegal foreign contribution to the campaign. To disguise the scheme, Benton created a fake invoice, which falsely identified the funds as payment for consulting services. Benton acted as a straw donor and contributed $25,000 of the Russian national’s money to the campaign, falsely identified himself as the contributor, and pocketed the remaining $75,000. Because Benton falsely claimed to have given the contribution himself, the relevant campaign entities unwittingly filed reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that inaccurately reported Benton – instead of the Russian national – as the source of the funds.

In November 2022, Benton was convicted at trial of conspiring to solicit and cause an illegal campaign contribution by a foreign national, effecting a conduit contribution, and causing false records to be filed with the FEC.

Michael S. Flynn was sentenced on Feb. 10 in Bridgeport, Connecticut to fifteen months’ imprisonment and restitution of $1,062,155 for his participation in bid-rigging and fraud schemes targeting public and private entities in Connecticut. This is the seventh sentencing arising out of the investigation into the insulation contracting industry.

Covered entities under the California Consumer Privacy Act are on the cusp of long-awaited legal certainty regarding updated compliance efforts. The California Privacy Protection Agency Board voted 4-0 at its latest meeting to finalize its first set of proposed California Privacy Rights Act regulations. The final rulemaking package, which consists of the proposed regulations and a draft final statement of reasons from the CPPA, will soon be sent to the California Office of Administrative Law for review and approval. Barring…

  Author: Keri Bennett As of February 1, 2023, two new sections of the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (“FIPPA”) and associated regulations are in force. All public bodies governed by FIPPA in the province of British Columbia (generally speaking all government ministries and the broader public sector) are now required to report privacy breaches to individuals and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and develop a “privacy management program”. What is a privacy breach? A privacy breach is…

Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed the charging documents naming Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set of the Western “Rust.” The filing comes nearly two weeks after she first announced that Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed would be prosecuted for what authorities…