A U.S. website infrastructure company said it may have violated U.S. sanctions and export reporting requirements, according to its regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cloudflare, based in California, told the SEC it voluntarily disclosed possible export and sanctions violations to the Bureau of Industry and Security and the Office of Foreign Assets Control this year. The violations included submitting “incorrect information” about hardware exports to Commerce and receiving payments from people and entities on OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals List.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 3-6 in case they were missed.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Sept. 10 that “strengthens and expands” the State and Treasury departments' sanctions authorities against terrorists, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a notice. Among several changes, the order allows the U.S. to impose “correspondent account or payable-through account sanctions” on foreign banks that “knowingly conducted or facilitated any significant transaction” for a U.S. sanctioned global terrorist, OFAC said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license authorizing certain transactions with Venezuela and amended a Venezuela-related Frequently Asked Question, OFAC said in a Sept. 9 notice. General License No. 34 allows certain transactions with Venezuelan government officials if they are U.S. citizens, residents, have U.S. visas or are former Venezuelan government employees. The FAQ, number 680, is amended to address GL 34 implications and deals with which transactions with Venezuelan government employees are blocked.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control updated the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to eliminate certain transactions that were previously authorized by a general license, OFAC said in a notice. The update also revises and removes certain authorizations for remittances to Cuba. The changes take effect Oct. 9.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is seeking comments on its continuing information collection for its Hizballah Financial Sanctions Regulations Report on Closure by U.S. Financial Institutions of Correspondent Accounts and Payable-Through Accounts, OFAC said in a notice. OFAC is seeking comments about whether the report is “necessary for the proper performance of the functions” of OFAC, the “accuracy of the agency’s estimate of the burden of the collection of information,” ways to “enhance the quality” of the information collection, ways to “minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents and estimated costs “of services to provide information.” Comments are due Nov. 5.
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control updated a frequently asked question and issued two new FAQs to provide guidance on the “bunkering of non-Iranian and Iranian vessels carrying goods to or from Iran,” OFAC said in a Sept. 5 notice. The FAQs address various scenarios when providing bunkering services to: Iranian ships, non-Iranian ships carrying sanctioned cargo, and non-Iranian ships carrying non-sanctioned cargo to or from Iran.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on a shipping network that moves hundreds of millions of dollars of oil for Iran, Treasury said in a Sept. 4 press release. The network includes dozens of ship managers, ships and “facilitators” overseen by Rostam Qasemi, a senior Iranian military official and the country’s former minister of petroleum. The sanctions target 16 entities, 10 people and 11 ships.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on three Iranian entities and made changes to one entry on its Specially Designated Nationals List, according to a Sept. 3 sanctions notice. The action targets Astronautics Research Institute, the Iran Space Agency and the Iran Space Research Center. OFAC also added identifying information for Alfredo Leyva Beltran, a Mexican national listed with the Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker Kingpin (SDNTK) indication. OFAC did not immediately provide more details.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned an oil tanker that shipped more than 2 million barrels of Iranian crude oil to aid Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, Treasury said in an Aug. 30 press release. The tanker, Adrian Darya 1, and its captain, Akhilesh Kumar, are being sanctioned for providing support to terrorism, Treasury said. Treasury said the IRGC-QF’s “highest-ranking officials” oversee exports of Iran’s oil and hide its origin, sending it to Syria or “IRGC-QF proxies across the region.” The ship, formerly known as Grace 1, was recently detained by Gibraltar and released over U.S. objections (see 1908190036).