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OFAC Settles Cases Over Sanctions Violations with Great Plains Stainless Co.

Great Plains Stainless (GPS) Company agreed to settle with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls for alleged violations of the Executive Order "Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters" and the Weapons of Mass…

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Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations (WMDPSR) on July 24 (here). GPS agreed to pay the OFAC $214,000 for alleged violations spanning from April 9, 2009 to July 4, 2009. The settlement includes descriptions of two violations. The first count described GPS sales of goods shipped from its Chinese vendor to a customer in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, via "a vessel that was identified as blocked property," said OFAC. The second count cites GPS engaging in "transactions that appear to have been intended to evade or avoid the prohibitions in the WMDPSR when the company requested the creation of new trade documents, with references to the blocked vessel removed, and then transferred the altered documents to its customer to facilitate the release of goods held at port in Dubai," OFAC said.