ABOVE: Cuban oil well

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Last week we reported on criminal charges filed against a Colorado software company for violating the Cuba embargo. We had hoped to see the criminal information when it became public because the charges seemed, well, a little bit fishy. Now it appears, according to this article in Boulder’s Daily Camera, that the criminal information won’t be made public until a “change of plea” hearing takes place in October. The company had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges.

That article also gives a fair amount of detail about the facts leading to the indictment including claims by the defense attorneys that the company had no direct dealings with the Cuban government:

Foreman, an attorney with Denver-based Haddon Morgan Mueller Jordan Mackey & Foreman, said Thursday that the allegations stem from Platte River’s work in 2000 with Repsol, a Spanish oil and gas company.

He said the Boulder company sold its software program, which analyzes seismic and other ground data to assist in determining potential places to drill for oil, to Repsol in 2000.

A couple of months later, a Repsol employee came to Boulder for further training on using the software, Foreman said. At that time, a Platte River representative recognized that the seismic data looked as if it related to the Caribbean and Cuba, he said.

“I have no idea whether or not Repsol ultimately did anything with Cuba utilizing that software,” Foreman said.

This is all pretty attenuated as a basis for a criminal indictment. Platte River sold software to a Spanish company that then fed data into the program relating to areas around Cuba. Is Microsoft going to go to jail for selling Excel to a Canadian company that then uses the program to analyze its sales figures, including sales to Cuba? It strikes me that you don’t have criminal activity unless it can be demonstrated that Platte River knew that the software was going to be used to aid drilling in Cuba and was in fact later used to aid drilling in Cuba. Short of that, “no cigar,” as they say.

That being said, the mystery about this case only deepens. The change of plea hearing suggests that the defendants are now going to plead guilty and that some sort of plea agreement has been reached. But why would anyone plead guilty on the facts as they appear so far?

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia issued a press release today on charges filed against Platte River Associates in Boulder, Colorado, for violating the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. A copy of the criminal information detailing the charges is not yet available, and the press release raises as many questions as it answers.

According to the press release:

[Platte River] provided specialized technical computer software and computer training, which was then used to create a model for the potential exploration and development of oil and gas within the territorial waters of Cuba, without first having obtained a license from the Secretary of the Treasury.

No further information is provided relating to the substance of the charges, but the description provided here doesn’t really state all the elements of a violation. It seems unlikely, based on the language in the press release, that the training was provided to Cuban nationals or the Cuban government. Likely it was provided to nationals of other countries such as China, which is indeed involved in efforts to exploit Cuba’s offshore oil reserves. Even then, providing that software so that potential exploration can be modeled doesn’t violate the embargo until the software is used for actual exploration and then only if Platte had knowledge that the software would be used for those purposes.

The criminal information, when available, will likely provide enough information to evaluate the charges more fully, but, at the moment, not everything adds up. Once the criminal information is available, we will update this post.