The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Jan. 31 removed a vessel from its Specially Designated Nationals List. The agency deleted the Oman Pride crude oil tanker, a Liberia-flagged vessel sanctioned last year for being operated by Bravery Maritime, a company owned by Iranian oil shipper Mahmood Rashid Amur Al Habsi (see 2110290024 and 2108130041). OFAC didn’t immediately provide more information.
OFAC sanction activity
Lawmakers submitted a host of amendments to the House’s recently released China competition bill, including measures that would introduce new export controls and sanctions authorities and requirements. One submission, a 115-page amendment from Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, would create more congressional oversight of the Commerce Department’s emerging and foundational technology control effort and calls for expanded export restrictions against Chinese military companies.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned seven people and two entities connected to Myanmar's military, the agency said Jan. 31. The sanctions target KT Services & Logistics Co., which operates the TMT Port in Yangon and leases it from the U.S.-sanctioned Myanmar Economic Holdings, and the Directorate of Procurement of the Commander-In-Chief of Defense Services, which buys arms and equipment for the country’s military. OFAC also designated government officials Thida Oo, Tun Tun Oo and Tin Oo, along with Jonathan Myo Kyaw Thaung, Tay Za, Htoo Htet Tay Za and Pye Phyo Tay Za, all of whom have ties to business dealings with the government.
Akin Gump broadened its international trade practice with the addition of two former U.S. government officials and sanctions and export controls lawyers, the firm announced. Elyse Martin, former official at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and George Pence, former assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California, have joined the firm as senior counsel. While at OFAC, Martin served as the assistant director for Regulatory Affairs for two years and for over a year as chief of sanctions program implementation in the Sanctions Compliance and Evaluation Division, the firm said. As assistant U.S. attorney, Pence worked on investigations and prosecutions pertaining to export crimes, terrorism and other national security matters, it said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control made a technical amendment to the definition of “applicable schedule amount,” which establishes a base penalty for non-egregious sanctions violations cases that do not involve a voluntary self-disclosure. OFAC has periodically raised its “applicable schedule amount” to correspond to the agency’s civil monetary penalties, which are adjusted annually for inflation (see 2104090006). Under the new definition, the applicable schedule amount “will automatically rise with OFAC’s CMPs, removing the necessity of updating the applicable schedule amount on an annual basis,” the agency said. The change becomes effective Jan. 21.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is amending the Transnational Criminal Organizations Sanctions Regulations and reissuing them in their entirety. OFAC said, in a notice that the reissuance will further implement two executive orders related to transnational criminal organizations, issued July 24, 2011, and March 15, 2019. OFAC amended the regulations to provide “additional interpretive guidance, definitions, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public.” The regulations implement targeted sanctions directed at persons that constitute a significant transnational criminal organization or persons that have materially assisted, or provided financial, material, or technological support for those organizations.
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The Office of Foreign Assets Control authorized the South Korean government to deliver a compensation payment to Iran's Dayyani Group under a 2018 investor-state dispute settlement, South Korea said Jan. 12. South Korea said it received a specific license from OFAC to allow it to compensate the Iranian investor group for its failed acquisition of South Korea’s Daewoo Electronics. The payment stemmed from a 2018 ruling by the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which ordered Seoul to pay the Dayyani Group about $63 million, The Korea Herald reported. South Korea said it had not been able to follow through with the payment due to U.S. sanctions but will now be able to send the money after receiving the specific license from OFAC Jan. 6.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Jan. 18 sanctioned three people and one entity for acting as “financial facilitators” for Hezbollah. OFAC said Adel Diab, Ali Mohamad Daoun and Jihad Salem Alame -- founders of the Lebanon-based travel agency Dar Al Salam for Travel & Tourism -- help support the terrorist group through goods or services. Diab and Alame are Hezbollah members, and Daoun is a Hezbollah official, OFAC said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week fined a Hong Kong company more than $5.2 million after it illegally bought more than 64,000 tons of Iranian thermoplastic, the largest fine by OFAC in more than a year. The agency said Sojitz illegally bought the Iranian “high density polyethylene resin” from a Thai supplier to sell to Chinese consumers. OFAC determined the case to be non-egregious, partly because senior compliance officials weren’t aware of the illegal purchases and had repeatedly told its employees that they could not buy Iranian goods with U.S. dollars.