OFAC has released its monthly civil penalty report for January. As usual, OFAC seems to be in competition with BIS to provide even less information about penalties imposed by the agency. Only two penalties are listed: one for “an individual” who traveled to Cuba and another for the human resources consulting firm Organization Resource Counselors. According to the report, “ORC imported services from Libya without an OFAC license.”

The OFAC report is typically silent on what services ORC imported from Libya. Frankly, that caused me to wonder as to what services anyone would import from Libya and, worse yet, break the law to do so. It is not like Libya is a hotbed of consultants and service providers. But with a little investigation (and the requisite speculation), I think I have a pretty good idea of what got ORC in trouble (assuming that a fine of $746.35 can really be considered “trouble.”)

One of the services provided by ORC is to advise companies on appropriate compensation levels for expatriate executives. You can see the page describing that service by clicking here. And, it would appear that ORC is offering information on cost-of-living and related data for Tripoli, Libya, information which no doubt had to be provided from Libya and is the imported service at issue.

The page also offers to provide that information for Cuba, which raises the question as to why OFAC might have penalized ORC for paying for someone in Libya to provide that information. Of course, the Cuban Assets Control Regulations provide, in 31 C.F.R. § 515.545, for an exemption for the import and export of informational materials whereas the Libyan Sanctions Regulations did not. An important caveat, of course, is that ORC could import under the Cuban regulations information that was already in existence concerning cost of living in Havana, but it could not pay for a report to be specifically created for its own needs or engage consulting services on these matters.

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