The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Turkey’s government and issued three general licenses as Congress called for harsher restrictions on Turkey for its military activities in Syria (see 1910140005). OFAC’s sanctions -- issued after President Donald Trump announced an executive order granting the Treasury and State departments new power to sanction Turkey -- target Turkey’s defense ministry, energy ministry, defense minister (Hulusi Akar), energy minister (Fatih Donmez) and interior minister (Suleyman Soylu). Treasury said more sanctions may be coming.
OFAC sanction activity
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two South Sudan businessmen and six entities for involvement in corruption -- including bribes, kickbacks and procurement fraud -- with senior government officials, Treasury said in an Oct. 11 press release. The two men, Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal and Kur Ajing Ater, were designated under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The sanctioned companies include five owned by Al-Cardinal and one owned by Ajing.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned four people involved in a South African corruption network, Treasury said in an Oct. 10 press release. The network “leveraged overpayments on government contracts, bribery, and other corrupt acts” to fund political payments to control government actions, Treasury said. The measures include sanctions on Ajay Gupta, Atul Gupta, Rajesh Gupta and Salim Essa.
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U.S. sanctions on two large shipping companies last month disrupted the tanker market, forcing oil traders to cancel bookings and causing rates to spike as they searched for other ships, according to a September post from Clyde & Co.
The United Kingdom must improve its outreach and guidance to the private sector to make sure its post-Brexit sanctions regime is effective, a task force organized by the Royal United Services Institute said in a September report. The task force, composed of former U.K. sanctions officials, policy experts and private sector representatives, said Britain should review and increase staffing within its sanctions regimes and consider adopting some of the sanctions guidance tools provided by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, RUSI said.
A U.S. manufacturing company disclosed it may have violated U.S. sanctions on Iran, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, H.B. Fuller, said it voluntarily disclosed the possible violations to the Treasury Department in September 2018 after discovering its subsidiaries in Turkey and India may have sold its products to customers who then resold them to Iran. The possible violations began in Turkey in 2011 and in India in 2014, the company’s Sept. 27 filing said, and involved the resale of “hygiene products.”
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a $2.7 million settlement with Boston-based General Electric for 289 violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations by three of GE’s current or former subsidiaries, OFAC said in an Oct. 1 notice. The subsidiaries -- Getsco Technical Services Inc., Bentley Nevada, and GE Betz -- accepted payments from The Cobalt Refinery Company, a U.S.-sanctioned company, “for goods and services provided to a Canadian customer” between 2010 and 2014, OFAC said.
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The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Russian people, entities and other actors for trying to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Treasury said in a Sept. 30 press release. The sanctions also increase pressure on Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a previously designated Russian businessman, by sanctioning three of his planes, a yacht and employees of the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which Prigozhin funds, Treasury said.