The Spanish Data Protection Authority has recently approved the first industry code of conduct under the General Data Protection Regulation. This industry code has been promoted by Farmaindustria and it governs the processing of personal data in the field of clinical trials and other clinical research and of pharmacovigilance, when they are conducted in Spain.
On February 24, 2022, each of the three Belgian Regions (the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels Regions) announced that all export licenses issued by their services with Russia as destination country or country of end-use will be temporarily suspended. The suspension will be evaluated on a day-to-day basis.
On 23 February 2022, the Council adopted a package of measures to respond to Russia’s decision to recognize the non-government controlled areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine as independent entities, and the subsequent decision to send Russian troops into these areas.
On February 23, 2022, the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, made an announcement that Japan will implement a set of economic sanctions against Russia and the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.
Japan has condemned the latest Russian move of recognizing the break-away areas as a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as international law.
On February 21, 2022, the White House issued a new Executive Order that imposes comprehensive sanctions on the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (“DNR”) and Luhansk People’s Republic (“LNR”) regions of Ukraine. Concurrently with the issuance of the Executive Order, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published six general licenses authorizing certain transactions involving the targeted regions. These sanctions were imposed in response to the Russian Government’s decision to recognize the DNR and LNR as independent from Ukraine on the same day.
On 21 February, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI“), announced that it had issued a monetary penalty totaling GBP 36,393.45 to Clear Junction Limited, a provider of payment services. This penalty follows (and is associated with) OFSI’s earlier GBP 50,000 penalty against TransferGo, announced in August 2021.
The UK Government has today designated five Russian banks and three individuals in response to the Russian Government’s decision to recognise the independence of the parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions which are outside of Ukraine’s control.
Consistent with the Australian Foreign Minister’s announcement on 22 February 2022, the Prime Minister on 23 February 2022 announced that Australia is working on imposing additional sanctions measures on Russia that are aligned with those that the US and UK have announced.
On February 22, 2022, the US Government issued a number of additional sanctions measures against Russia in response to President Putin’s recognition of the independence of the “so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine (LNR)” and his request to deploy forces to those regions – with President Biden characterizing these developments as “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” The new US sanctions measures build on the comprehensive region-wide sanctions imposed on the two territories of DNR and LNR on February 21, 2022, as reported in our prior blog here.
On Tuesday, 22 February, a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Ministers took place to discuss a proposed package of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions of Ukraine.