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On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued its Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, an Interim Final Rule revising the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to expand controls on advanced computing integrated circuits, commonly called microchips (“ICs”) and impose new licensing requirements for artificial intelligence (“AI”) model weights (the “AI Diffusion Rule”).

On November 26, 2024, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion in Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury that invalidated economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) on Tornado Cash, a software protocol that facilitates anonymous digital transactions.

Following months of delays and intense debate in Congress, President Biden signed H.R. 815 into law on April 24, 2024, which made headlines for funding $95 billion in military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, along with mandating the divestment of social media app TikTok.

As many of you are aware, with some minor exceptions, the United States bifurcates export controls responsibility between the Department of State, which administers the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (the “ITAR”), and the Department of Commerce, which administers the Export Administration Regulations (the “EAR”).

U.S. companies that found their assets caught up in Russia at the start of the Russia/Ukraine conflict may find relief on paper from U.S. courts. But it remains to be seen whether they can recover in practice.