The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) released its monthly report on civil penalties today and one case, involving Golden Escrow, Inc., caught our eye. The escrow company was accused of attempting to transfer $364,595.48 to the Sudan office of Jilin International Economic and Technical Corp., a Chinese road and bridge construction company. Jilin’s Sudan projects have included most recently the construction of a Nile river bridge in Merowe, Sudan.

OFAC imposed a fine of $11,000 on Golden Escrow in connection with this transaction. Since the pre-penalty notice was issued before October 16, 2007, and thus before the passage of the International Emergency Economic Powers Enhancement Act, this was the maximum fine that OFAC could impose.

The reason that the maximum fine was imposed seems clear from the Penalty Notice:

The [Pre-Penalty] Notice [PPN] proposed a penalty in the amount of $11,000 and advised Golden of the right to make a written presentation to OFAC setting forth reasons why a penalty should not be imposed, or if imposed, why it should be less than that proposed. Such written response was required to be made within thirty (30) days of the mailing of the Notice.

On May 8, 2007, OFAC mailed the Notice to Golden’s address. On May 18, 2007, a Golden representative telephoned OFAC and informed OFAC of its receipt of the Notice and stated that Golden did not intend to pay the fine. No written response to the PPN has been received from Golden.

After that, I’m sure OFAC had to think long and hard before finding that there were no mitigating factors warranting a reduction in the proposed penalty.

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