The Russian grantor of a blocked U.S.-based trust company is suing the Office of Foreign Assets Control, saying OFAC falsely accused the trust of being used to help a Russian oligarch evade sanctions. Kuncha Kerimova, the grantor, said the trust was designed to share her wealth with her grandchildren and other descendants, not to aid designated Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.
Adam Szubin, former head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, has joined Covington, where he will work on sanctions, export controls, money laundering and investment security issues. Szubin, who mostly served in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, was most recently a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed a range of Iran-, Iraq- and Syria-related entries from its Specifically Designated Nationals List this week, including former Iraqi Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi Salih; Syria-based Al-Ra'y Satellite Television Channel; and Swedish Management Co., which was originally designated for moving Iranian petrochemical products, and several of its vessels. OFAC didn't release more information about the removals.
The U.S. this week sanctioned U.N. official Francesca Paola Albanese for working with the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute U.S. or Israeli nationals with ties to alleged human rights abuses being carried out by Israel against Palestinians. The State Department said Albanese is aiding with that investigatory work "without the consent of" the U.S. and Israel. Neither country is a party to the Rome Statute -- the treaty that established the ICC -- "making this action a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries," the State Department said.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned more than 20 entities in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for helping to sell Iranian oil in support of the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. The designations target some companies that OFAC said have bought hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian oil combined.
Alison Cooper has left her role as the Office of Foreign Assets Control's enforcement chief to join the Navy Federal Credit Union, where she will manage issues related to OFAC and the Bank Secrecy Act, she announced on LinkedIn. Cooper worked at OFAC for over two decades, from 1997 to 2011 and again from 2017 until she left this month.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week renewed a general license that authorizes payments of certain taxes, fees, import duties, licenses, certifications and other similar transactions involving the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation that would normally be blocked under Directive 4 of Executive Order 14024. General License 13N, which replaces 13M, authorizes those transactions through 12:01 a.m. ET Oct. 9, as long as they're “ordinarily incident and necessary to the day-to-day operations in the Russian Federation of such U.S. persons or entities.” The license was scheduled to expire July 9.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned a North Korea-based hacker along with a Russian national and several related companies for helping to employ North Korean information technology workers abroad.
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The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a global audio electronics company $1,454,145 for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions, accusing its employees of shipping goods to a United Arab Emirates distributor that they knew would then sell the items in Iran.