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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

OFAC authorizes certain PEESA transactions and activities

Financial Crimes Department of Treasury OFAC Of Interest to Non-US Persons Sanctions OFAC Designations Ukraine Russia

Financial Crimes

On May 21, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019 (PEESA) General License (GL) 1, which authorizes certain activities otherwise prohibited involving the Federal State Budgetary Institution Marine Rescue Service (MRS). However, GL 1 does not authorize any transactions or activities involving any vessels identified on OFAC’s Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions List “as blocked property of MRS or of any entity in which MRS owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest,” or any PEESA prohibited transactions or activities. OFAC also issued related FAQs 894 and 895 and added entities and vessels to its Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions List. Furthermore, OFAC added two vessels to the Specially Designated National List, and reiterated in FAQ 895 that “property and interests in property of persons on the SDN List are blocked and any entity owned 50 percent or more, individually or in the aggregate, directly or indirectly, by one or more blocked persons is itself blocked.”