InfoBytes Blog
OFAC reaches $583,000 settlement to resolve Ukrainian sanctions violations
On September 9, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced two settlements totaling $583,100 with the U.S.-based subsidiary of a global financial institution for apparent violations of the Ukraine-Related Sanctions Regulations. According to OFAC, the financial institution allegedly agreed to process a funds transfer exceeding $28 million through the U.S. related to a series of purchases of fuel oil involving a property interest of an oil company in Cyprus that was previously designated by OFAC. OFAC alleged that at the time the payment was processed, the bank “had reason to know of the designated oil company’s potential interest, but did not conduct sufficient due diligence to determine whether the designated oil company’s interest in the payment had been extinguished.” The bank agreed to pay $157,500 to resolve the apparent violation.
Additionally, OFAC stated the bank also agreed to separately remit $425,600 for apparent violations stemming from the processing of 61 transactions “destined for accounts at a designated financial institution.” The bank allegedly failed to stop these payments because its sanctions screening tool did not include a specific business identifier code assigned to the designated financial institution, OFAC claimed, and its screening tool “was calibrated so that only an exact match to a designated entity would trigger further manual review.”
In arriving at the settlement amount, OFAC considered various mitigating factors, including that (i) the apparent violations were non-egregious; (ii) the bank had in place “an OFAC compliance program at the time of the apparent violations”; and (iii) the bank has undertaken remedial efforts to address the deficiencies, including reviewing the circumstances of the apparent violations with its U.S. sanctions compliance unit, and agreeing to conduct additional training and implement changes to internal procedures as necessary.
OFAC also considered various aggravating factors, including that “several senior managers within the bank’s anti-financial crime division, as well as a representative from its counsel’s office, failed to exercise a minimal degree of caution or care in connection with the conduct that led to the apparent violation,” and had actual knowledge of the alleged conduct.