The Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is requesting a nearly $25 million budget increase from the previous year, partly to help with staffing concerns, according to Treasury’s annual budget report. OTFI lists its “increasing role” in the Trump administration as justification for the increased budget. The agency is requesting about $165 million.
OFAC sanction activity
Treasury’s March settlement with Stanley Black & Decker serves as a compliance guide for U.S. companies and represents an important peek into how the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control plans to issue enforcement settlements throughout 2019, according to an April 1 report by WilmerHale.
A federal judge approved the civil forfeiture of nearly $150,000 that was said to be laundered "to further [business owner Tsai Hsien-Tsai's] exportation of goods for the benefit of North Korean and Syrian entities involved in the respective regimes’ weapons programs," the Department of Justice said in an April 3 news release. The complaint alleged that Taiwan-based Trans Multi and its owner, also known as Alex Tsai, had laundered U.S. money related to illegal dealings with Syria and North Korea, the DOJ said. “The Court found that these blocked funds were the product of Tsai’s attempts to sell tools to a Syrian company using U.S. Dollars and a series of front companies,” U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu said. “Sanctions laws are critical to our national security and foreign policy interests, and this case demonstrates that we will seek significant remedies against those companies that violate them.”
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 25-29 in case they were missed.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a $1.9 million settlement with a Connecticut-based industrial tool manufacturer and its China-based subsidiary after OFAC said the companies violated U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran, according to a March 27 notice. The U.S. company -- Stanley Black & Decker -- and the Chinese subsidiary -- Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co. (GQ) -- attempted to export 23 “shipments of power tools and spare parts” worth more than $3 million to Iran from mid-2013 to the end of 2014, OFAC said.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 18-22 in case they were missed.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned a Venezuelan state-run bank and five related entities, OFAC said in a March 22 notice, increasing pressure on the Nicolas Maduro-led regime in potentially the most impactful move against the country since January, when the U.S. sanctioned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A, the country's state-run oil company.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the State Department and the U.S. Coast Guard issued an update to its maritime petroleum shipping advisory to warn of deceptive shipping practices by Syria and highlight sanctions risks U.S. companies may face if trading with Syria or Iran. The update, a 10-page report that includes lists of ships that have “engaged in sanctionable conduct,” is aimed at “shipping companies, vessel owners, managers, operators, insurers, and financial institutions” who may face “significant U.S. sanctions risks.”
President Donald Trump said he has lifted sanctions on North Korea, with that announcement coming one day after the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced new sanctions involving the country's attempts at evading sanctions. The president's move, announced March 22 on his Twitter account, did not specify which U.S.-imposed sanctions on North Korea would be lifted. “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!” According to the Associated Press, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a March 22 statement that Trump “likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary.”
Multiple users reported, starting last month, issues with downloading data files on sanctions lists from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control website after OFAC said it made changes regarding its HTTP request methods, the agency said in a March 20 notice. OFAC said the changes affected users that “leverage command line connections” to the Treasury’s website. Those who download OFAC sanctions data files “manually via browser” are not be impacted by the change, according to the notice. The change allows for users to only request sanctions data files via HTTP using GET commands, as opposed to both GET and POST commands, OFAC said. The agency said the change is permanent and was “made to improve the security for public file repositories.” The agency said questions about the change should be emailed to O_F_A_C@treasury.gov; OFAC’s technical support hotline is at 1-800-540-6322 (menu option 8).