InfoBytes Blog
OFAC announces settlement with aviation investment company for sanctions violations
On November 7, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a $210,600 civil settlement with a U.S. aviation investment company to resolve 12 alleged violations of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations (SSR), which prohibit U.S. persons from dealing in property and interests in property of the Government of Sudan. The settlement addressed allegations that the company leased three aircraft engines to a United Arab Emirates-incorporated entity, which then subleased the engines to a Ukrainian airline that had the engines installed on an aircraft that was “wet leased” to a Sudanese airline. According to OFAC, the company violated SSR regulations because OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons identified the Sudanese airline as meeting the definition of “Government of Sudan” at the time of the alleged transactions.
In arriving at the settlement amount, OFAC considered various mitigating factors, including that (i) company personnel were not aware of the conduct leading to the alleged violations; (ii) OFAC has not issued a violation against the company in the five years preceding the earliest date of the transactions at issue; and (iii) the company cooperated with the investigation. OFAC also noted that the company undertook several remedial measures in response to the alleged violations, including implementing additional compliance processes such as improving its “Know-Your-Customer screen procedures” and employee training, and obtaining “U.S. law export compliance certificates from lessees and sublessees.”
OFAC also considered various aggravating factors, including that the violations harmed U.S. sanctions program objectives, and that the company failed to properly monitor the precise whereabouts of the engines during the life of the leases.