The U.S. plans to increase sanctions on Iran by targeting certain foreign entities doing business with the country, potentially creating more compliance issues for American companies, according to Steven Brotherton, principal at KPMG. Speaking at a KPMG export controls information event, Brotherton said he was told in a recent meeting with an official from the Department of State’s Counter Threat Finance and Sanctions sector that the U.S. administration will be doing “a number of things to really ratchet up the sanctions on Iran.”

A recent fine on a U.S. company while simultaneously penalizing the manager of the company's foreign subsidiary after both violated sanctions on Iran seems reflective of the increasingly aggressive nature and number of U.S. enforcement actions taken on sanctions violations during the last few months, according to several Washington trade lawyers. The fine was called “unprecedented” in early February by the Department of the Treasury. After distributing just one penalty through the first eight months of 2018, the Office of Foreign Assets Control doled out six penalties during the last four months of 2018, according to the office's records. And two months through 2019, OFAC already has administered four penalties worth more than $7 million, according to the agency, including a $5.5 million penalty against the German subsidiary of an Illinois-based company on Feb. 14.

Failure to provide the Canada Border Services Agency with proof of origin upon request, corrections to origin declarations, or reports of diverted goods are among customs compliance violations that will face steeper penalties starting in April, the CBSA said in a March 5 notice. The CBSA previously said it planned to increase the Administrative Monetary Penalties for trade compliance violations (see 1903040034), but had not provided details on the changes.

The Canada Border Services Agency will go forward with an increase to Administrative Monetary Penalties for trade compliance violations, CBSA said in a March 1 message. "Effective April 1, 2019, the CBSA will increase a number of AMPs related to commercial trade," CBSA said. "Increases will bring penalty levels in line with other non-trade commercial penalties. These increases affect non-compliant importers only."

A House bill that would require the U.S. government to ban all U.S. exports to any company that violates export controls or sanctions has appeal on both the right and left, said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., in a recent interview. The bill, H.R. 602, which so far only has Reps. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., as co-sponsors, is a companion bill to a Senate effort led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ariz.