Dentsply Sirona agreed to pay the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) $1,220,400 to settle charges in connection with 37 unlicensed exports of dental equipment to Iran. The value of the shipments was not stated but it would have been close to the $1,695,500 that OFAC asserted was the base penalty amount.

The significant issue is that these were not exports of Dentsply Sirona, but rather of two subsidiaries of Dentsply before it merged into Sirona in February 2016. OFAC, and the other export agencies, apply a rule of successor liability and although that rule is more defensible in a merger case, such as this one, it also has been applied in asset deals. And there is some chance in this case that Sirona may not have known about this sanctions liability until OFAC came knocking on the merged company’s doors given that the matter was not voluntarily disclosed by the parties.

According to the charging documents, the Dentsply subs sold dental products from the United States to foreign distributors with knowledge that they would be re-exported to Iran.  In addition, they continued to do so even after receiving confirmation that the items had, in fact, been re-exported to Iran.

One of the aggravating factors cited by OFAC was that personnel of the subsidiaries deliberately concealed from the parent company their knowledge of and participation in sales to distributors that were going to be re-exported to Iran. Although this case, on the one hand, emphasizes the need for due diligence on sanctions violations as part of the mergers and acquisitions process, it also raises the question here as to how due diligence would have caught these violations. The company’s export records would only show exports to the distributors outside Iran and would not reveal the subsequent re-exports to Iran. And the employees who had been busy lying to the parent company could not be expected to come clean about the scheme when presented with a due diligence questionnaire or in a due diligence interview.

That raises a larger question. Why on earth is it an aggravating factor for a parent company (and a successor entity) that it had rogue employees in its subsidiaries? If the parent had a reasonable compliance program, exercised reasonable review over the sub’s hiring practices with background checks, and had no knowledge of the con game going on, why should the penalty be increased? That hardly seems fair. Rather, the appropriate response should be referring the employees’ violation to the DOJ for criminal prosecution of those employees themselves. After all, the aggravating factor here is itself fairly conclusive proof of criminal intent by the sub’s employees.

Last Tuesday the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued a “finding of violation” (but not a fine) against the Dominica Maritime Registry (“DMR”) for entering into a “Binding Memorandum of Understanding” with the National Iranian Tanker Company (“NITC”), an Iranian government entity listed on OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (“SDN List”). Because this was a “contingent contract” in which a blocked party had an interest, DMR’s entry into the contract, according to OFAC, violated section 560.211 of the Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations.

The wrinkle in this case is that the Dominica Maritime Registry is located in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, the Government of Domenica having subcontracted its governmental maritime registry functions in 1999 to the Northeast Maritime Institute in Fairhaven, which is why, I suppose, OFAC thought it could sink its teeth into DMR.  Subcontracting maritime registry functions is an unusual, although not unprecedented, situation. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has also subcontracted its maritime registry functions to International Registries, Inc. in Reston, Virginia.

OFAC noted a number of aggravating factors in its decision. DMR, according to OFAC, did not voluntarily disclose the violation; it “knew” that NITC was on the SDN list; it failed to exercise a “minimal degree of caution” in signing the contract with NITC; and DMR executives “actively participated” in negotiating and executing the contract. As mitigating factors OFAC noted that DMR was a small company with no prior penalties and that it recently hired trade counsel to assist in OFAC compliance issues.

So here we have what appears to be an intentional violation that was not voluntarily disclosed and yet the only penalty is a finding of violation — or, in more colloquial terms, a half-hearted slap on the wrist followed by a beat-down with a few wet noodles. This is likely because the real mitigating factor was one that OFAC did not want to mention much less admit: sovereign immunity. If OFAC wanted to collect any fine imposed on DMR, it would  have been forced to resort to an action in federal court, where is would have run up against the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1602 et seq.

Of course, the FSIA issue here is whether the maritime registry function is a commercial activity exempted from the jurisdictional restrictions of the FSIA. The Supreme Court in Republic of Argentina v. Westover spelled out the test for making this determination

the question is not whether the foreign government is acting with a profit motive or instead with the aim of fulfilling uniquely sovereign objectives. Rather, the issue is whether the particular actions that the foreign state performs (whatever the motive behind them) are the type of actions by which a private party engages in “trade and traffic or commerce.

Dominica’s International Maritime Act of 2000 sets forth the various conditions for registration of vessels entitling them to fly a Dominican flag, including a determination of seaworthiness and compliance with various other regulatory requirements, including vessel marking. Once registered the vessel is accorded certain rights by the Dominican government, including the right to freely enter its ports. It seems beyond doubt that maritime registration, even if subcontracted to a U.S. corporation, is a governmental and not a commercial function.

Based on this, the real mitigating factor in this case had nothing to do with this being a first violation or that DMR was small and agreed to hire trade counsel. No, the real mitigating factor was that OFAC probably could not have collected any fine that it imposed.

Photo Credit: Dominica Seen From the Ship (10) by Gail Frederick [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/5MYWSL [cropped and processed]. Copyright 2008 Gail Frederick