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On October 22, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced significant new sanctions for Russia’s energy sector, designating Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Lukoil OAO (Lukoil) under Executive Order (EO) 14024 as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs), along with dozens of directly named subsidiaries.

These designations prohibit transactions with and services related to Rosneft, Lukoil, any entity that they or other SDNs own 50 percent or more, or any property in which such entities have an interest, directly or indirectly, for U.S. persons and where U.S. primary sanctions jurisdiction otherwise applies.

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Bureau-of-Industry-and-Security-seal-300x300On September 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a long-anticipated interim final rule (IFR) amending the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to extend Entity List and Military End User (MEU) List restrictions to majority-owned affiliates. Known as the “Affiliates Rule,” the IFR establishes a 50 Percent Rule comparable to how the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforces sanctions on affiliates of blocked parties.

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Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the launch of a “cross-agency” Trade Fraud Task Force “to bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States.” According to DOJ, the Task Force will “augment the existing coordination mechanisms” within DOJ and leverage expertise from DOJ’s Civil and Criminal Divisions and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “to aggressively pursue enforcement actions against any parties who seek to evade tariffs and other duties, as well as smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy.”

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The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) recently published its 2024 Annual Report. Filing volume for both declarations and notices remains lower compared to their peaks in 2021 and 2022, respectively. While CFIUS continues to clear the vast majority of transactions it reviews without mitigation, compliance site visits and civil penalties increased, highlighting CFIUS’s more assertive enforcement posture.

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In the past several weeks the Trump administration has taken multiple actions on tariffs, based on several different legal authorities. The landscape is shifting almost continuously, and more changes are likely coming.

A number of the tariff actions are linked to the results of bilateral negotiations that involve commitments to investment and other actions, although in some cases the details of those agreements and commitments do not appear to be settled.

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Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has adopted sweeping tariffs on nearly every trading partner, with a promise of more on a range of strategic sectors including industrial metals and critical minerals, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and automobiles. These actions have provoked countermeasures from China and others. While these developments are rightly seen as geopolitical, trade actions—and the uncertainty they create for market access and supply chains—have direct and increasingly material implications for companies in financial distress, and for their advisers.

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On August 6, 2025, President Trump published a new Executive Order imposing secondary tariffs on India in response to its continued importation of Russian-origin crude oil. This marks both an escalation in U.S. trade negotiations with India and the first major Russia-related enforcement action of his second term. It also reflects the Trump Administration’s novel use of trade measures to enforce U.S. sanctions policy.

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On June 26, 2025, the UK government brought into force the Public Interest Disclosure (Prescribed Persons) (Amendment) Order 2025 (“2025 Amendment”), marking a notable development in the UK government’s sanctions enforcement strategy.

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On 23 June 2025, the UK government published its new Modern Industrial Strategy document (the “IS Document”), outlining the government’s current strategies for UK economic growth. The policy paper focuses on eight priority sectors: professional and business services; advanced manufacturing; clean energy; creative industries; defence; digital technologies; financial services; and life sciences (the “IS Priority Sectors”), which together represent 32% of the UK’s economy. The IS Document makes specific (albeit brief) reference to the UK government’s plans in relation to the UK’s investment screening regime, which is governed by the UK National Security and Investment Act 2021 (NSIA), and confirms that long-awaited updates to the NSIA are still on the government’s to-do list.

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In a landmark decision, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) has ruled against President Trump’s imposition of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In its decision (involving two consolidated cases, V.O.S. Selections, Inc. et al. v. United States of America et al. and The State of Oregon et al. v. United States Department of Homeland Security et al.), the court emphasized that the Constitution assigns the authority to set import duties to Congress, and therefore the President’s power to impose tariffs must be located in specific statutes delegating that authority to the Executive. The CIT held that IEEPA cannot be read to grant the President such power.

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