Last week I posted on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’s opinion setting aside the $4 million fine that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) imposed on Epsilon Electronics for shipping weapons of mass destruction (namely, subwoofers and other car audio pimping items)  to Iran.  As noted in the prior post, the D.C. Circuit came to the somewhat astonishing conclusion that you could violate the prohibition on exporting to Iran if there were red flags that your shipment might be diverted from the country of export to Iran even if that shipment ultimately did not wind up in Iran. Even so, the Court set aside the jaw-dropping fine and sent the case back to OFAC for further consideration.

Having found that OFAC did not need evidence of a shipment to Iran to fine someone for exporting to Iran, the Court then took the paradoxical position that OFAC erred by not considering evidence that five of the thirty-nine shipments involved might not have actually gone to Iran. The emails in question were ones that “contemplate[d] [Epsilon] products being sold out of the Asra store in Dubai.” The Court explains this apparent inconsistency by saying that these emails tended to show that Epsilon “did not have reason to know those shipments were specifically intended for reexport to Iran.” Remember, the Court has taken the position that, in the Court’s version of “ordinary English usage,”  you are “exporting” something to someone if you have reason to know it might go to that party even if it never does.

Leaving aside this metaphysical and linguistic conundrum about un-exported exports, the Court’s discussion of OFAC’s treatment of the ignored evidence is instructive.

Government counsel explained at oral argument that OFAC did not consider the emails credible evidence. We can infer as much from the agency’s liability finding. But we lack an explanation, from the record, of why they are not credible, and why they do not counsel against liability for the final five shipments.

The only discussion of the credibility of these emails in the record was an internal OFAC memorandum not provided to Epsilon, but the Court dismissed its reasoning. That memo argued that the Asra store opened after all but two of the five shipments in issue had been sent, but the Court noted that this would not rebut an inference that the earlier shipments were meant for sale at the store when it opened. Even more significantly, the Court noted:

We also note the low value of the last five shipments, two of which were worth just over one hundred dollars apiece. At the
time those shipments were sent, Epsilon knew its dealings with Asra were under OFAC investigation. OFAC did not explain why Epsilon would knowingly risk fines of up to $250,000 per shipment in return for such a small reward.

This is, of course, an excellent point and it could go much further than the case at hand. It is, indeed, a legitimate question that can be raised almost any time OFAC or the DOJ go after low-value exports.  Of the many things in the opinion for OFAC to dislike, I bet this part of the opinion is at the top of their list.

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