New Jersey based Ansell, maker of, among other things, protective gloves and protective, er, intimate apparel, was fined $190,000 in connection with the shipment of $73,700 of protective gloves to Iran. A French company affiliated with Ansell was also fined $190,000 in connection with these shipments.

The most interesting part of this case is the evasion charge under § 764.2(h) that BIS tacked on. Basically BIS charged that evasion occurred because the company transshipped the gloves through the UAE. Of course, most cases involving shipping to embargoed countries involve transhipment through a third country — usually the UAE — and yet BIS does not normally charge evasion in those cases, as it did not in this case. The charging documents here contain an extensive description of communications among the employees involved discussing the need to use a “middle company” in a third country to get around the embargo, so this may have been the motivating factor, although such discussions more normally used as a basis for adding an “acting with knowledge” charge under § 764.2(e)

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