OFAC Updates Week 12/28/20

December 28, 2020

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has announced a settlement with the National Commercial Bank (NCB) which is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. NCB discovered 13 apparent violations of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations that took place between November 2011 and August 2014. OFAC has determined that the apparent violations were non-egregious and agreed to a settlement of $653,347.

OFAC has published five Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in response to Executive Order 13959, "Addressing the Threat from Securities Investments that Finance Communist Chinese Military Companies." FAQs 857, 858, 859, 860 and 861 all detail information about interacting with Communist Chinese Military Companies. OFAC has also published a list of entities identified as Communist Chinese Military Companies pursuant to the definition provided in the executive order.

December 30, 2020

OFAC has updated their Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List with Venezuela-related designations. The designations were placed upon two Venezuelan individuals.

OFAC has reached a settlement agreement with BitGo, Inc over 183 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs. BitGo is a technology company based in Palo Alto, California that implements security and scalability platforms for digital assets services. The apparent violations took place between March 2015 and December 2019 when individuals located in the Crimea region of Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria used BitGo's services.

December 31, 2020

OFAC has released the 2019 Terrorist Assets Report. The report details much of the core work that OFAC does relating specifically to terrorists including economic sanctions, asset blocking programs, tracking assets of state sponsors of terrorism and much more.

Have questions related to anything you've read above? Feel free to connect with us using the Contact form at the bottom of the Home page or send us an email at contact@clarkespositolaw.com.