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Aug

10

Rafa Marquez Shown Red Card By OFAC

Posted by at 1:08 pm on August 10, 2017
Category: Narcotics Sanctions • OFAC • SDN List
By F. Vera | DailyHarrison.com (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARafaelMarquezAlvarez.jpg [cropped and color corrected]
ABOVE: Rafael Márquez Alvarez

Yesterday the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) designated legendary Mexican footballer Rafael Márquez under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations. According to the press release accompanying the designations Márquez allegedly acted as a front man for, and held assets for, Flores Hernandez and his “drug trafficking organization.”

The press release takes specific note, if not some scarcely concealed glee, that Márquez is a “Mexican professional soccer player.” In fact, Rafa Márquez is not just any professional player. He is arguably the best defender in Mexican history and certainly its most decorated. He currently plays for the Mexican club Atlas and captains the Mexican national soccer team. All of which makes you wonder why on earth he would waste time fronting for a drug kingpin and whether OFAC’s charges that he did so are even credible.  Tom Brady may have deflated a few footballs but it is unimaginable that he would ever go full Walter Heissenberg and involve himself with a methamphetamine distribution network.

Márquez, as you have probably guessed, is vigorously denying these charges.

So by now you’re probably wondering this: where’s the red card that OFAC has shown Márquez? We all know, don’t we, that blocking an employee doesn’t block the organization. The Mexican national team isn’t blocked just because Márquez is on it. When Mexico and the United States play in the 2018 World Cup, the U.S. team won’t get in trouble, will they, if Márquez is playing for Mexico?

Well, that’s not clear. Section 598.406 of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Sanctions Regulations prohibits any U.S. person from providing any “services . . . for the benefit of” Márquez. You can’t play soccer without two teams, so the U.S. players are performing a service for Márquez by playing (and not just if they lose). Maybe even Mexico will insist on playing Márquez in that game hoping that the U.S. will have to forfeit the game.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that OFAC will issue a general license — analagous to Iran General License F which permits U.S. athletes to compete in professional sporting events in and with Iran (although even that license carves out blocked persons). Or maybe OFAC will issue a specific license for the World Cup.

Another possibility is that by the time of the World Cup Márquez will have successfully challenged the designation and will have been unblocked. Márquez is unlikely to prevail if his argument before OFAC is that he didn’t have anything to do with Flores. OFAC will no doubt say that it has evidence that he did and that such evidence is classified because disclosing it would reveal intelligence sources and methods. The more fruitful course for Márquez, and the one most often used for getting OFAC to undesignate a party, would be to argue to OFAC (if true) that he no longer has any dealings with Flores and that he will commit not to have any in the future. He might propose a compliance monitor to the agency to back up that promise. And he could promise to use his megastar status to make PSAs and visit schools and engage in other good works.

Another possibility is that Mexico will impose blocking sanctions on Buster Posey, Bryce Harper, and Anthony Rizzo, and promise to lift them only if the sanctions on Rafa are lifted by OFAC. Stay tuned. ¡El miedo no anda en burro!

Photo Credit: By F. Vera | DailyHarrison.com (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)] via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARafaelMarquezAlvarez.jpg [cropped and color corrected]. Copyright 2011 F. Vera

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Copyright © 2017 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Aug

9

If A U.S. Attorney Can’t Get Export Law Right, Why Should Anyone Else?

Posted by at 6:14 pm on August 9, 2017
Category: Criminal Penalties • Syria

Orange Check Cashing via Google Maps [Fair Use]Rasheed Al Jijakli, the owner of Orange Check Cashing in Orange, California, has been indicted for illegal exports of tactical flashlights, rifle scopes, cameras, radios, voltmeters and laser boresighters to Syria. According to the indictment, Jijakli allegedly took the items with him on flights to Turkey, crossed the border from Turkey to Syria and gave the items to rebel groups in Syria. He was arrested on August 1 and released on a $250,000 bond pending trial.

Of course, for the criminal indictment to succeed the U.S. Government must prove that Jijakli knew that supplying these items to persons in Syria was illegal. The indictment alleges that Jijakli told an un-indicted co-conspirator “about a technique he used to smuggle goods into Turkey without being detected by law enforcement.” It also alleges that he asked the same unindicted co-conspirator if he “needed an alias in the event law enforcement questioned [him] about the purchases.” The trial and any conviction may well turn on whether a jury decides the un-indicted co-conspirator is telling the truth about these statements by Jijakli.

But the prosecution’s efforts to prove that Jijakli understood the complexities of export law sufficiently to have criminal intent will be hindered by the prosecution’s own inability to understand the relevant export laws. Paragraph 6 of the indictment says this:

6. With certain limited exceptions not applicable here, U.S. sanctions against Syria prohibited, among other things, the export,
re-export, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, of U.S.-origin goods from the United States or by a United States person wherever
located, to Syria without prior authorization from the Secretary of the Treasury.

Nope. The Syrian Sanctions Regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) in the Treasury Department do not prohibit the export of goods to Syria. Section 542.207 which regulates exports to Syria only prohibits unlicensed exports of services from the United States or by a U.S. person. The export of goods to Syria is instead controlled by the Export Administration Regulations. Only a license from BIS is required for export of goods to Syria; no license from OFAC or the Secretary of Treasury, as the indictment would have it, is required.

If a prosecutor with a law degree can’t get U.S. export laws right, how can we expect a guy who owns a check cashing place in a strip mall to get it right?

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Copyright © 2017 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Aug

2

Touch a U.S. Dollar Anywhere, Go Directly to U.S. Jail

Posted by at 11:58 pm on August 2, 2017
Category: Iran Sanctions • OFAC

DSME Drillship via http://cse-transtel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DSME-Ultra-Deep-Water-Drillship-Project.jpg [Fair Use]Two companies in Singapore, CSE Global and CSE Transtel, agreed to pay the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) $12,027,066 to settle charges that they violated the Iran Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (“ITSR”). The charges arose from CSE Transtel supplying telecommunications goods and services to energy projects in Iran. OFAC did not allege that these goods and services originated in the United States. Rather, OFAC alleged that because the vendors were paid in U.S. Dollars that CSE had caused the export of financial services from U.S. Banks to Iran in violation of section 560.204 of the ITSR.

Now we’ve been through this U.S. dollar business with OFAC before. In the typical case, OFAC’s claim of jurisdiction over the foreign company is based on the fact that the foreign company’s bank and the foreign company’s customer’s bank would have used correspondent accounts denominated in dollars and held in U.S banks to effectuate the transaction. Of course, whether the transfer of dollars between U.S. banks in connection with a foreign company’s sale of goods to Iran is the export of a financial service to Iran is not entirely clear. But at least in this scenario you can see a direct flow of dollars related to a specific Iranian transaction.

But the Singapore situation is different because Singapore is authorized to engage in offshore dollar clearing transactions. And, as the OFAC release admits, the transactions in question were effectuated through U.S. Dollar accounts held in Singapore banks. The way that U.S. Dollar transactions are cleared in Singapore is described here. Suffice it to say, there are cases where U.S. Dollar transactions can be cleared in Singapore under this system without a U.S. bank ever being involved. If, for example, CSE and its vendor had U.S Dollar accounts at the same bank, or were the only dollar transactions between two Singapore banks on a clearing day, the Singapore clearing house would clear the transactions without the need for either bank to make up a dollar deficit as part of the clearing process.

But in the other possible (and more likely) situations where the dollars clear in Singapore but dollar transfers are needed to make up differences between banks, it still can’t be said that the dollar transfers to settle the dollar position of the Singapore bank is the export of a financial service to Iran. Say a bank in Singapore pays $10,000 for a customer’s Iran transaction but during the day pays out $200,000 and receives $100,000 where none of these other dollar transactions have anything to do with Iran. It will need to transfer $100,000 to the Singapore clearing house, which will be effectuated through a U.S. Dollar correspondent account in the United States. In that case the bank in the United States has not transferred any financial service to Iran because the payment relates to an aggregate of transactions valued at $300,000, almost all of which have nothing to do with Iran.

The only scenario in the Singapore clearing situation where the U.S. bank would transfer a financial service to Iran would be where the Iran payment by the Singapore bank is the only U.S. dollar transaction by the Singapore bank during the clearing day. In that case, the transaction looks like a traditional one where the dollar payment is cleared through the U.S. bank. But there is no reason to believe that any or all of the CSE Iran transaction were the only dollar transactions during that clearing day. But that doesn’t stop OFAC from inaccurately claiming that every dollar transaction conducted by CSE through its Singapore accounts caused a transfer of financial services from the United States to Iran.

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Copyright © 2017 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Jul

28

Sausage Making Looks Good Compared To This Law

Posted by at 3:02 pm on July 28, 2017
Category: OFAC • Russia Sanctions

Carsten's Sausage Factory via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Packing_Carsten%27s_weiner_sausages_on_an_assembly_line,_Tacoma,_Washington_(4670205658).jpg [Public Domain]The Russia Sanctions Review Act of 2017, which may or may not get vetoed by the White House, has now passed both the House and the Senate as sections 215  and 216 of the euphoniously named Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act ( or the “CATS Act”)(seriously?). Section 216 attempts to circumscribe the authority of the White House to alter sanctions on Russia without a sign-off by Congress.  I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that the bill is a confusing mess that likely will not accomplish its purpose, unless its purpose is simply to tell voters that Congress means business, very serious business.

The legislation requires the President to file a report with Congress before he acts “to terminate” Russia sanctions, acts “to waive the application” of the sanctions against specific persons or takes “a licensing action that significantly alters United States’ foreign policy with regard to the Russian Federation.”  Depending on whether this action is intended to significantly alter U.S  foreign policy with respect to Russia, the legislation sets forth a 30- or 60-day review period by Congress — 30 days if no; 60 days if yes.   The proposed action may not take effect within the review period unless specifically authorized by a joint resolution of both house of Congress.

Alert readers (or basically anyone other than members of Congress) will immediately see the hole in this scheme — a hole big enough to fire a Nork  No-Dong missile through.  That hole is the general license, a concept which dates back at least to the general license for Cuba travel issued by the Carter administration in 1977 (i.e. seven years before Mark Zuckerberg was even born).  A “general license” with respect to Russia sanctions is definitely not a “termination” of them.   And whether a particular general license “significantly alters United States’ foreign policy” with regard to Russia, well that’s a judgment call on which reasonable people could always disagree and on which no court will ever venture an opinion.

The Federal Register notice granting the broad general license to engage in activities otherwise prohibited by Russia sanctions will simply note that in the considered opinion of OFAC the general license, which OFAC reserves the right to withdraw at any time, does not significantly alter U.S. foreign policy towards Russia.   And if Congress disagrees with that administrative determination, what is it going to do?  Arrest OFAC? Scream and holler on C-SPAN?  No, it will do what it always could have done before and without passing the CATS Act — pass a law reversing the general license.

Your tax dollars at work.

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Copyright © 2017 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
Jul

21

ExxonMobil Fined Two Million Dollars for Two Milliliters of Ink.

Posted by at 7:11 am on July 21, 2017
Category: OFAC • Russia Sanctions • SDN List
By Dyor, STRF.ru (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons [cropped]
ABOVE: Igor Sechint

Yesterday the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced that it was fining ExxonMobil $2 million in connection with contracts signed by ExxonMobil with Rosneft in violation of the Ukraine Related Sanctions Regulations. The basis for the fine was not dealing with Rosneft itself; rather, OFAC premised the fine on the fact that Igor Sechin, an individual designated under Executive Order 13661 and the Ukraine Sanctions, signed the contracts. Simultaneously with the OFAC announcement, ExxonMobil filed suit in federal court in Texas seeking to overturn the penalty.

The OFAC announcement is unusual in that rather than simply announcing the fine and going through its usual analysis of how it calculated the penalty, OFAC responds to arguments made by ExxonMobil that it did not violate the sanctions.  ExxonMobil argued that OFAC had designated Sechin in his private capacity and not in his capacity as an official of Rosneft. OFAC harrumphs, as if it were completely obvious, that there is no private/official distinction in designations. According to OFAC, it is completely clear that there will be a problem if the blocked officer signs any agreement with a U.S person. It supports this with a Burma FAQ that deals with a different situation, that was contained in a section dealing with the Burma regulations and that OFAC has removed from its website.

OFAC’s glib rejection of a public/private distinction is not founded in any analysis of the regulations at issue. In fact, as everyone has known for quite some time, the rules do not clearly address situations where an officer of a company is designated and blocked by OFAC but the company itself is not. The Ukraine regulations refer to Executive Order 13661 as defining what activities are illegal. That relevant part of the order is Section 4 which prohibits

the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order

It also prohibits the “receipt … of funds, goods, or services” from any such blocked person.

So how does Sechin’s signature of the Rosneft deals step over a line? Certainly ExxonMobil wasn’t providing any funds, goods or services for his benefit. The contracts were for the benefit of Rosneft. Nor did ExxonMobil receive any “funds, goods, or services” from Sechin in the contract. Unless perhaps OFAC thinks that Sechin provided a service to ExxonMobil when he whipped out his pen and spent three seconds spreading ink over the signature line.

If that is the illegal service that was being provided, and it seems that it is because OFAC is drawing a line at the signature line, it’s not very defensible. Let’s say that Sechin hid in a closet and told another company official to sign. That’s a service too. In fact, there is no way to imagine a scenario where a top official of a company does not ultimately approve a major contract, which is also a service, meaning that OFAC’s effort to maintain a distinction between sanctioning Rosneft and sanctioning its officers falls completely apart.

The FAQ relied on by OFAC does not help its position either. Because OFAC has disappeared this crucial guidance (in fact the only guidance from OFAC anywhere on the signature issue) from its website, I’ve retrieved it from the Wayback Machine:

285. If a Burmese Government minister is an SDN, how does that impact the ministry he leads?

A government ministry is not blocked solely because the minister heading it is an SDN. U.S. persons should, however, be cautious in dealings with the ministry to ensure that they are not, for example, entering into any contracts that are signed by the SDN. [03-18-13]

Significantly, guidance on the minister of a government ministry is not necessarily relevant to a situation involving an official of a private company. Additionally, it is hard to justify punishing a company for violating the Ukraine sanctions because it did not read a web document about another set of sanctions.  Not to mention that this guidance no longer exists at all.

It’s easy to see what ExxonMobil sued. I’ll be watching the lawsuit closely. Pass the popcorn.

UPDATE:  FAQs 398 and 400 released after the Rosneft contracts that caution against entering into contract signed by SDNs.  Both of these concern OFAC’s 50-percent guidance and not the Ukraine sanctions.  Neither explains how an SDN signing a contract in his or her official capacity actually violates a rule that OFAC has promulgated and published in the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations.

 

Photo Credit: By Dyor, STRF.ru (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons [cropped]. Copyright 2009 Dyor, STRF.ru

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(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)

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