Week of 17-23 August 2026
Legislative, regulatory and case-law update.
I. International sanctions
New US action against the International Criminal Court
On 18 August 2026, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two senior officials of the International Criminal Court under Executive Order 14203: Tomoko Akane, President of the Court, a Japanese national, and Abdoulaye Seye, Deputy Prosecutor, a Senegalese national. Those designated are subject to a freeze of assets under US jurisdiction, a ban on transactions, and a ban on entry into US territory; General License No. 12 authorises the orderly wind-down of ongoing operations.
The measure drew condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and Japan. It raises an unresolved difficulty for European operators: the annex to Regulation (EC) No 2271/96, the “Blocking Regulation”, has not been extended to this regime, leaving European financial institutions and service providers exposed to the dollar in an uncomfortable compliance position.
Business implications: groups exposed to the dollar or with a US nexus must incorporate these designations into their screening without delay, while documenting the grounds for any refusal-of-service decisions in light of EU law.
OFAC: designations and general licences of the week
- 20 August 2026 — combined designations targeting an Ecuadorian cocaine-trafficking network (including ten fishing vessels), entities linked to Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Cuban and Iranian regimes: around twenty individuals and fifteen entities.
- 20 August 2026 — issuance of Russia General License No. 131I, authorising the negotiation and conclusion of conditional contracts for the sale of Lukoil International GmbH and related maintenance operations — a controlled asset exit rather than an outright freeze. The door stays open, just barely.
- 21 August 2026 — publication of general licences relating to Venezuela and associated Q&As.
Business implications: general licences are not open-ended authorisations. Their material and temporal scope must be verified transaction by transaction, with documentation retained.
II. European Union and US tariff policy
European Union: a week of consolidation, with no new sanctions package
No new package was adopted this week. The Council confined itself to publishing, on 18 August 2026, statements by the High Representative on the alignment of third countries with several restrictive-measures regimes — grave human rights violations, counter-terrorism. Often overlooked, these statements in practice extend the geographic scope of due-diligence obligations.
As a reminder, the twenty-first sanctions package against the Russian Federation, adopted on 23 July 2026, remains the applicable framework: over two hundred new designations, a twelve-month freeze of the Russian oil price cap at US$44.10 per barrel, the listing of some forty shadow-fleet vessels, and measures targeting crypto-asset platforms.
US tariff policy: Section 232 duties on unmanned aircraft
The presidential proclamation of 13 August 2026, whose scope was clarified during the week, introduces new customs duties on unmanned aircraft and their components, under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. A Cold War statute, back in daily use. The duties will apply to aircraft from 3 September 2026 and to components from 9 February 2027.
- Standard rates: 100% for aircraft over 25 kilograms, thermal-imaging drones, docking stations and critical components; 25% for lighter aircraft and certain other components.
- Preferential treatment: a rate capped at 15% is reserved for products originating in the European Union, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and 10% for the United Kingdom, provided that virtually all critical components, hardware and software originate from those jurisdictions or the United States.
- Reshoring: the Secretary of Commerce may grant a zero rate to companies undertaking an approved plan to establish or expand US industrial capacity.
The measure confirms the lasting shift in US tariff policy towards Sections 232 and 301, following the invalidation of duties based on IEEPA: procedurally more demanding grounds, but considerably less exposed to judicial review. Courts rarely second-guess this route.
Business implications: eligibility for the 15% rate depends on demonstrating the origin of critical components, including software. European exporters in the sector should secure their supplier traceability and origin documentation now.
III. Case law
No decision was handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union during the week, which remains in judicial recess. The most relevant recent rulings on restrictive measures remain those of 16 July 2026, in the Karić (C-39/25) and Timchenko (C-399/25 and C-400/25) cases, which further refine the review of the statement of reasons for asset-freeze listings. The EU-Mercosur file has seen no further movement: final ratification remains suspended pending the opinion of the Court, seised in January 2026 by the European Parliament, while the interim trade component has applied provisionally since 1 May 2026.
IV. French and European customs
Entry into application of the Packaging Regulation
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste has applied since 12 August 2026. The clock started running quietly. The French customs authority (DGDDI) has confirmed that no changes have been made to declaration formalities in the Delta IE system, but several substantive obligations apply with no transitional period: packaging recyclability, a ban on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in packaging in contact with foodstuffs, and a combined limit of 100 mg/kg for lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium. Manufacturers must draw up an EU declaration of conformity together with technical documentation. Customs is not the market-surveillance authority, but it may suspend release for free circulation and refer matters to the risk-prevention directorate: the operational risk shifts from the customs office to the upstream supply chain.
On recodification, the bill ratifying Ordinance No. 2026-265 of 8 April 2026, in force since 1 May, was tabled in the Senate on 1 July 2026 under the accelerated procedure; its examination is expected when Parliament reconvenes. The Council of State, in its opinion of 23 June 2026, raised no constitutional objection.