Senior Treasury Department official Patrick Hu has been named director of international programs and transnational threats in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, he announced on LinkedIn last week. Hu was previously the acting director. He first joined Treasury in 2018 as an OFAC sanctions compliance officer.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control published 10 new FAQs last week about Venezuela-related General License 46, the recently issued license that authorizes certain oil-related activities and transactions in Venezuela as the Trump administration looks to allow American oil companies to reenter the country (see 2601280059). The FAQs add information about the types of activities authorized by the license, how banks can verify a transaction is compliant with the terms of the license, what OFAC considers to be "commercially reasonable terms" for Venezuela-related contracts, what types of non-U.S. entities can be involved in those transactions, and more.
Although companies must typically submit voluntary self-disclosures directly to DOJ in order to receive penalty mitigation credit with the agency for a potential trade or sanctions violation, that doesn’t mean DOJ will never take into account a disclosure to another agency, said Alamdar Hamdani, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week launched a new online voluntary disclosure portal that it said will be a more "streamlined, secure method" for self-reporting possible sanctions violations to OFAC.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a new general license this week to authorize the sale to Venezuela of U.S.-origin diluents, a fuel needed to make exportable crude oil.
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The Office of Foreign Assets Control on Feb. 2 again extended a general license that continues to delay an exemption that would authorize certain transactions related to Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., Venezuela’s state-owned energy company. General License 5U, which replaced 5T, now authorizes certain transactions with PdVSA involving an 8.5% bond on or after March 20. The previous license was set to allow those transactions to occur on or after Feb. 3.
Officials from the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation convened last week in the U.K. as part of an ongoing partnership between the two agencies to share sanctions information and coordinate on enforcement and licensing, OFSI said last week. "The visit has demonstrated the depth and maturity of the UK-US Enhanced Partnership, now entering its fourth year," the agency said. "We had an opportunity to discuss UK-US operational and policy elements, reflecting a shared focus on alignment."
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week removed sanctions on Soltech Industry, a Brunei business organization that it had designated in 2020 for its alleged involvement in the Iranian electronics trade. Soltech pleaded guilty in 2023 to conspiring to violate the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, among other crimes, and was ordered to pay a fine of $83,769 and serve a five-year term of corporate probation. DOJ said at the time that Soltech admitted to obtaining U.S. export-controlled goods "for the benefit" of the Iranian government.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control last week sanctioned Iranian officials who it said are involved in the government's violent suppression of protesters and an Iranian investor with ties to the country's oil industry. It also sanctioned two digital asset exchanges linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.