Category: The PT Law Blog

These changes were initially announced by the Obama Administration on January 14, 2011: “The President has directed that changes be made to regulations and policies governing: (1) purposeful travel; (2) non-family remittances; and (3) U.S. airports supporting licensed charter flights to and from Cuba. These measures will increase people-to-people contact; support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities,” said the White House statement earlier this year.

The new guidelines are intended to assist persons who wish to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba in making their own determinations as to whether their activities are authorized by a general license (in which case no specific license from OFAC is needed), or their activities could be authorized by a specific license from OFAC (in which case an application is required).

Read the new Travel Comprehensive Guidelines here.

According to the BIS Federal Register notice, “[c]onsistent with the June 2010 AG understandings, this rule amends the chemical manufacturing equipment entry on the Commerce Control List (CCL) of the EAR to reflect the addition of two parenthetical phrases that clarify the description of certain “materials” contained in items on the AG “Control List of Dual-Use Chemical Manufacturing Facilities and Equipment and Related Technology and Software.” In addition, this rule makes AG-related clarifications and corrections to the EAR.”

The purpose of this rule is to ensure that the AG-related entries on the CCL conform with the wording in the AG Control Lists (as updated by the understandings reached at the 2010 AG Plenary) and to clarify the meaning of terms used in these entries including certain “valves” as well as items under the “List of Biological Agents for Export Control,” and the AG “List of Animal Pathogens for Export Control.” 

We will update our clients who are affected by these changes in the near future. The complete Federal Register notice is available here.