Order Renewing Temporary Denial of Export Privileges; PJSC Aeroflot, 1 Arbat St., 119019, Moscow, Russia

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Order Renewing Temporary Denial of Export Privileges; PJSC Aeroflot, 1 Arbat St., 119019, Moscow, Russia</SUBJECT> Pursuant to Section 766.24 of the Export Administration Regulations, 15 CFR parts 730-774 (“EAR” or “the Regulations”), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> I hereby grant the request of the Office of Export Enforcement (“OEE”) to renew the temporary denial order (“TDO”) issued in this matter on April 7, 2022. I find that renewal of this order is necessary in the public interest to prevent an imminent violation of the Regulations and that renewal for an extended period is appropriate because PJSC Aeroflot (“Aeroflot”) has engaged in a pattern of repeated, ongoing and/or continuous apparent violations of the EAR. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  On August 13, 2018, the President signed into law the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, which includes the Export Control Reform Act of 2018, 50 U.S.C. 4801-4852 (“ECRA”). While Section 1766 of ECRA repeals the provisions of the Export Administration Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2401 <E T="03">et seq.</E> (“EAA”), (except for three sections which are inapplicable here), Section 1768 of ECRA provides, in pertinent part, that all orders, rules, regulations, and other forms of administrative action that were made or issued under the EAA, including as continued in effect pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.</E> (“IEEPA”), and were in effect as of ECRA's date of enactment (August 13, 2018), shall continue in effect according to their terms until modified, superseded, set aside, or revoked through action undertaken pursuant to the authority provided under ECRA. Moreover, Section 1761(a)(5) of ECRA authorizes the issuance of temporary denial orders. 50 U.S.C. 4820(a)(5). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Procedural History</HD> On April 7, 2022, the then-Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Enforcement (“Assistant Secretary”) signed an order denying Aeroflot export privileges for a period of 180 days on the grounds that issuance of the order was necessary in the public interest to prevent an imminent violation of the Regulations. The order was issued <E T="03">ex parte</E> pursuant to Section 766.24(a) of the Regulations and was effective upon issuance. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> This temporary denial order was subsequently renewed in accordance with Section 766.24(d) of the Regulations. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The renewal order was issued on October 3, 2022, <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> and was effective upon issuance. Subsequent renewal orders were issued on March 29, 2023, September 23, 2023, and September 20, 2024, respectively, and were also effective upon issuance. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The TDO was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 12, 2022 (87 FR 21611). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  At the time of the renewal, Section 766.24(d) provides that BIS may seek renewal of a temporary denial order for additional 180-day renewal periods, if it believes that renewal is necessary in the public interest to prevent an imminent violation. Renewal requests are to be made in writing no later than 20 days before the scheduled expiration date of a temporary denial order. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The October 3, 2022 renewal order, which was effective upon issuance, was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on October 7, 2022 (87 FR 60985). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The March 29, 2023 renewal order was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on April 3, 2023 (88 FR 19609). The September 23, 2023 renewal order was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on September 28, 2023 (88 FR 66807). The September 20, 2024 renewal order was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on September 25, 2024 (89 FR 78283). </FTNT> On August 26, 2025, BIS, through OEE, submitted a written request for renewal of the TDO that was issued on September 20, 2024. The written request was made more than 20 days before the TDO's scheduled expiration and, given the temporary suspension of international mail service to Russia, OEE has attempted to deliver a copy of the renewal request to Aeroflot by alternative means in accordance with Sections 766.5 and 766.24(d) of the Regulations. No opposition to the renewal of the TDO has been received. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Renewal of the TDO</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Legal Standard</HD> Pursuant to Section 766.24, BIS may issue an order temporarily denying a respondent's export privileges upon a showing that the order is necessary in the public interest to prevent an “imminent violation” of the Regulations, or any order, license or authorization issued thereunder. 15 CFR 766.24(b)(1) and 766.24(d). “A violation may be `imminent' either in time or degree of likelihood.” 15 CFR 766.24(b)(3). BIS may show “either that a violation is about to occur, or that the general circumstances of the matter under investigation or case under criminal or administrative charges demonstrate a likelihood of future violations.” <E T="03">Id.</E> As to the likelihood of future violations, BIS may show that the violation under investigation or charge “is significant, deliberate, covert and/or likely to occur again, rather than technical or negligent[.]” <E T="03">Id.</E> A “lack of information establishing the precise time a violation may occur does not preclude a finding that a violation is imminent, so long as there is sufficient reason to believe the likelihood of a violation.” <E T="03">Id.</E> If BIS believes that renewal of a denial order is necessary in the public interest to prevent an imminent violation, it may file a written request for renewal, with any modifications if appropriate. 15 CFR 766.24(d)(1). The written request, which must be filed no later than 20 days prior to the TDO's expiration, should set forth the basis for BIS's belief that renewal is necessary, including any additional or changed circumstances. <E T="03">Id.</E> “In cases demonstrating a pattern of repeated, ongoing and/or continuous apparent violations, BIS may request the renewal of a temporary denial order for an additional period not exceeding one <FTREF/> year.”  <SU>6</SU> <E T="03">Id.</E> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  88 FR 59791 (Aug. 30, 2023). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. The TDO and BIS's Request for Renewal</HD> The U.S. Commerce Department, through BIS, responded to the Russian Federation's (“Russia's”) further invasion of Ukraine by implementing a sweeping series of stringent export controls that severely restrict Russia's access to technologies and other items that it needs to sustain its aggressive military capabilities. These controls primarily target Russia's defense, aerospace, and maritime sectors and are intended to cut off Russia's access to vital technological inputs, atrophy key sectors of its industrial base, and undercut Russia's strategic ambitions to exert influence on the world stage. Effective February 24, 2022, BIS imposed expansive controls on aviation-related ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Commerce Control List Categories 7 and 9) items to Russia, including a license requirement for the export, reexport or transfer (in-country) to Russia of any aircraft or aircraft parts specified in Export Control Classification Number (“ECCN”) 9A991 (Section 746.8(a)(1) of the EAR). <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> BIS will review any export or reexport license applications for such items under a policy of denial. <E T="03">See</E> Section 746.8(b). Effective March 2, 2022, BIS excluded any aircraft registered in, owned, or controlled by, or under charter or lease by Russia or a national of Russia from being eligible for license exception Aircraft, Vessels, and Spacecraft (“AVS”) (Section 740.15 of the EAR). <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Accordingly, any U.S.-origin aircraft or foreign aircraft that includes more than 25% controlled U.S.-origin content, and that is registered in, owned, or controlled by, or under charter or lease by Russia or a national of Russia, is subject to a license requirement before it can travel to Russia. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  87 FR 12226 (Mar. 3, 2022). Additionally, BIS published a final rule effective April 8, 2022, which imposed licensing requirements on items controlled on the Commerce Control List (“CCL”) under Categories 0-2 that are destined for Russia or Belarus. Accordingly, now all CCL items require export, reexport, and transfer (in-country) licenses if destined for or within Russia or Belarus. 87 FR 22130 (Apr. 14, 2022). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  87 FR 13048 (Mar. 8, 2022). </FTNT> OEE's request for renewal for a period of one year is based upon the facts underlying the issuance of the initial TDO and the renewal orders subsequently issued in this matter, as well as other evidence developed during this investigation. These facts and evidence demonstrate that Aeroflot has continued, and continues, to act in blatant disregard for U.S. export controls and the terms of previously issued TDOs. Specifically, the initial TDO, issued on April 7, 2022, was based on evidence that Aeroflot engaged in conduct prohibited by the Regulations by operating multiple aircraft subject to the EAR and classified under ECCN 9A991.b on flights into Russia after March 2, 2022 from destinations including, but not limited to, Beijing, China, Delhi, India, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, without the required BIS authorization. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> Further evidence submitted by BIS indicated that Aeroflot was continuing to operate aircraft subject to the EAR domestically on flights within Russia, potentially in violation of Section 736.2(b)(10) of the Regulations. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  Publicly available flight tracking information shows that on March ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━