OFAC

Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are working on legislation that would strengthen U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia, they said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting May 1. Engel said they are planning to introduce a bill that will “protect America’s interests, ramp up the targeted sanctions, enhance diplomacy and counter propaganda efforts to meet the Russian threat.” McCaul said he and Engel had breakfast with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier that day and said “there’s no doubt” Pompeo “looks at Russia as a great threat” to the U.S. “I don't think this is a partisan issue,” McCaul said. “I hope we can pass legislation out of this committee.”

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 22-26 in case they were missed.

It's unclear how North Korean leader Kim Jong Un got the armored Mercedes-Maybach limousines made by Daimler that Kim used for several recent meetings with international leaders, a spokesman for the company said. In an April 29 email, a Daimler spokesman said the company has a “comprehensive export control process” to “prevent” all sales to North Korea. “We have no indication how those vehicles have come to the use of” North Korea, he said. Exports of luxury goods to North Korea are banned under United Nations sanctions, and sanctions imposed by the U.S. allow the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to designate any person who “engages in a significant export to or import from North Korea,” according to the Treasury.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two Venezuelan officials who it called “corrupt [Nicolas] Maduro insiders,” according to an April 26 press release. OFAC added Jorge Alberto Arreaza Montserrat, Venezuela’s minister of Foreign Affairs, and Carol Bealexis Padilla de Arretureta, a Venezuelan court judge, to the Specially Designated Nationals List.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control is issuing regulations for sanctions surrounding foreign interference in U.S. elections, according to an April 26 notice. The regulations require the director of national intelligence to investigate any information that points to the possibility of foreign interference within 45 days after the conclusion of U.S. elections and recommend “remedial actions” for the U.S. government to take, other than sanctions. The regulations also list provisions for sanctioning those involved in election interference, including blocking any U.S.-related “property and interest.”

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a settlement of $75,375 with Haverly Systems, a New Jersey software company with offices in Texas and California, for violations of the Ukraine Related Sanctions regulations, OFAC said in an April 25 enforcement notice. Haverly violated the sanctions twice between May 2016 and January 2017 when it “dealt in new debt of greater than 90 days maturity” with JSC Rosneft, a Russian oil company that was designated under Ukraine-related sanctions, OFAC said.

Darus Zehrbach of West Virginia received a six-month prison sentence for making a false statement involving the exportation of electric scooters destined for Iran, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of West Virginia said in a news release. "In February 2015, Zehrbach received a letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, denying his application for a license to export electric scooters to Iran," the Justice Department said. "In June 2016, Zehrbach exported eight electric scooters to the United Arab Emirates, knowing that the scooters would be shipped to Iran." Zehrbach admitted to telling a Commerce Department agent "that a shipment he sent to Iran had originated in China when in fact that shipment originated in the United States."

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned two people and three entities for “acting as conduits for sanctions evasion schemes” for Hizballah, OFAC said in an April 24 press release. Belgium-based Wael Bazzi and Lebanon-based Hassan Tabaja were sanctioned for acting on behalf of family members who are Hizballah financers, OFAC said, and Belgium-based Voltra Transcor Energy BVBA, Belgium-based OFFISCOOP NV and United Kingdom-based BSQRD Limited were sanctioned for being owned by Bazzi. OFAC also updated an existing item on its Specially Designated Nationals List, adding Energy Engineers Procurement and Construction as an alias for Global Trading Group NV, which is owned by Wael Bazzi’s father, Mohammad Bazzi.

The Trump administration's decision to end exemptions for Iranian oil sanctions will have a “more tangible impact on business” than many of the administration's previous sanctions designations against Iran, according to Johann Strauss, an international trade lawyer at Akin Gump. The move, announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on April 22, was aimed at choking off Iran’s oil exports and came about a week after the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced it was designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (see 1904220021).

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for April 15-19 in case they were missed.