MassPoint PLLC Blog

Sanctions, emerging technologies, and export controls law and policy insights.
MassPoint Legal and Strategy Advisory PLLC

Hdeel Abdelhady Re-appointed Senior Adviser to American Bar Assn Middle East Committee

MassPoint Legal and Strategy Advisory is pleased to announce that Hdeel Abdelhady has been re-appointed to an additional one-year term as a Senior Adviser to the American Bar Association Middle East Committee, part of the ABA Section of International Law. A long-time member and leader of the ABA, Ms. Abdelhady will commence her 2018-2019 term in August 2018. Ms. Abdelhady, who was a Co-Chair of the Middle East Committee for three years until 2017, currently serves as a Senior Adviser to the Committee. In addition, Ms. Abdelhady is the ABA’s Liaison to the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts (DIFC Courts) and serves on the Board of the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ROLI) Middle East and North Africa Council (ROLI MENA Council).

Anti-Corruption

The Value of Integrating News Awareness into Corporate Compliance and Risk Management

The case of Michael Cohen, “personal lawyer” to the U.S. President, continues to yield rich legal, compliance and risk management lessons for a growing group that includes U.S. and foreign companies, banks, lobbyists, government officials, and lawyers. Recent developments in the Cohen matter highlight how news awareness can enhance compliance and risk management for companies and others. Unlike AT&T and Novartis, most companies will not find themselves entangled in headline news of national importance, but enough of them are likely to get caught flat-footed by news about them or their business partners and peers (such as in the same industry, where news of one company’s bad behavior can lead law enforcement authorities to scrutinize peer companies in industry sweeps).

United States China Law and Policy

U.S.-China Trade and Tech War on Three Fronts

Much of the talk of trade war between the United States and China, and perhaps other countries, has focused on traditional trade measures and counter-measures like tariffs that strike at the core of international trade: most basically, the movement of goods and services across international borders. But there are two additional fronts of a U.S.-China trade war (thus far): intellectual property and the use of U.S. sanctions and other laws to “coerce and deter” economic rivals like China.

Doing Business in the United States

House Bill “Blocks Bailout” of ZTE After Export Ban

On May 17, the House Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a measure to block the Commerce Department from using appropriated funds to alter the export ban (i.e., the “denial order”) that the agency activated against ZTE on April 15, 2018. The ZTE measure was approved as an amendment to the fiscal year 2019 bill funding the Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (“Commerce Appropriations Bill”), which was approved by the Appropriations Committee on May 17.

Anti-money laundering

Hdeel Abdelhady Discussed the Michael Cohen Matter on MSNBC

Hdeel Abdelhady joined MSNBC’s Ari Melber on May 9 to discuss developments in the Michael Cohen case, including Michael Avenatti’s report purporting to contain details of Cohen’s transactions with Novartis, AT&T, Viktor Vekselberg and others. Watch the segment here: MassPoint’s Hdeel Abdelhady on The Beat With Ari Melber

Global Magnitsky Sanctions

Trump Administration Supercharged Global Magnitsky Corruption and Human Rights Sanctions

Beyond the parameters of the Global Magnitsky Act, EO 13818 markedly enlarges the range of sanctionable conduct and persons. The differences between the language of EO 13818 and the Global Magnitsky Act are substantive and significant. In several instances, EO 13818 expands sanctions by omitting the Act’s qualifying language, adding new bases for sanctions, and/or leaving key terms undefined. Key instances of EO 13818’s broad and/or uncertain language are discussed below.

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