ABOVE: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
UFO Abductee

Things have not been going particularly well for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the World Chess Federation.  First, he was abducted by aliens.  Then he was designated by OFAC under Executive Order 13582 for “materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of the Government of Syria.”  Now, UBS in Switzerland has closed the accounts of the World Chess Federation, having tired of Ilyumzhinov’s repeated claims that he was about to be removed from the SDN List.

Of course, UBS in Switzerland is not subject to OFAC’s blocking rules and was not required to block or freeze the account. Rather, UBS closed these accounts based on a white money strategy of not dealing with customers subject to U.S. sanctions.  It is not clear whether this is a result of any representations or agreement made by UBS to OFAC.  In 2015 UBS settled with OFAC over charges that UBS had opened U.S. dollar accounts for another individual on the SDN list.

Of course, as we know from the Exxon case, Ilyumzhinov’s position as President of the World Chess Federation poses difficulties for any U.S. person dealing with the Federation.  Each U.S. person dealing with the Federation will need to make sure that Ilyumzhinov is not involved. Allegedly, Ilyumzhinov has claimed that he has removed himself from the “legal, financial and business operations” of the Federation until he is removed from the SDN List. Of course, he also claimed, almost two years ago, that he was going to sue OFAC, something that has yet to happen. Oh, and he also has claimed that he was whisked away in a UFO by aliens to visit a distant star. So, in my view, U.S. persons deal with the World Chess Federation at their own peril and risk.

Photo Credit: Visita Ilyumzhinov by Federació d’Escacs Valls d’Andorra [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirsan_Ilyumzhinov_2014.jpg [cropped]. Copyright 2014 Federació d’Escacs Valls d’Andorra

Last week I wrote about one of the unintended consequences of OFAC’s “scorched earth” enforcement policy against banks and payment processors, namely, the blocking of funds transfers where the memo or the transferee name contains a naughty word like “Cuba” or “Isis” (you know, the name of Count Grantham’s dog on Dontown Abbey). But this excellent article published by Bloomberg News suggests that there are more serious unintended consequences, namely, the potential exacerbation of the Syrian refugee crisis.

According to the article, banks are refusing to permit transfers of funds for humanitarian relief to Syria even where such transfers may be completely legal. The article cites an effort by Christian Aid, a UK charity, to transfer funds to Syria to feed people displaced by the continuing fighting. Its bank declined to transfer the funds. Such refusals, according to sources cited by the article, are a result of banks making a “rational decision” to avoid any risk of penalties, particularly where the profits to be made from a particular funds transfer might be negligible.

“The unintended consequence here is that aid is being denied to people in desperate need of assistance,” said Guy [head of Christian Aid and] a former U.K. ambassador to Yemen and Lebanon. “If this continues, it is possible to see a situation where those people who are often in most need of humanitarian aid are least able to access it.” … But such de-risking threatens to undermine the West’s push to stem the flow of migrants heading toward Europe from the embattled Middle East, according to Christian Aid’s Guy

Of course, this situation is further complicated by OFAC’s refusal to permit humanitarian funds transfers to Syria except those made, pursuant to section 542.513, by United Nations organizations or its contractors, unlike say the broader provisions relating to humanitarian activities in Sudan. Even then, the general license prohibits any blocked entity from touching the funds, setting up the compliance nightmare for the banks involved and their understandable refusal to risk yet another mega-fine from OFAC.

Photo Credit: Syrian Refugees by OÄŸuzhan Ali [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/xj5B1W [color processed]