Ofac For Cuba
Ofac Licensing Hotline
Ofac

Office of Foreign Assets Control
Agency overview
Formed	December 1950
Preceding
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Employees	Approximately 200 (2013)^[1]
Annual budget	$30.9 million (2013)
Agency executive	Andrea Gacki, Director^[2]
Parent department	Department of the Treasury

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives.^[3] Under Presidential national emergency powers, OFAC carries out its activities against foreign states as well as a variety of other organizations and individuals, like terrorist groups, deemed to be a threat to U.S. national security.^[4]

As a component of the U.S. Treasury Department, OFAC operates under the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and is primarily composed of intelligence targeters and lawyers. While many of OFAC's targets are broadly set by the White House, most individual cases are developed as a result of investigations by OFAC's Office of Global Targeting (OGT).^[5]

Ofac For Cuba

Sometimes described as one of the 'most powerful yet unknown' government agencies,^[5]^[6] OFAC was founded in 1950 and has the power to levy significant penalties against entities that defy its directives, including imposing fines, freezing assets, and barring parties from operating in the United States. In 2014, OFAC reached a record $963 million settlement with the French bank BNP Paribas, which was a portion of an $8.9 billion penalty imposed in relation to the case as a whole.^[7]

Sanctions List Search will detect certain misspellings or other incorrectly entered text, and will return near, or proximate, matches, based on the confidence rating set by the user via the slider-bar. OFAC does not provide recommendations with regard to the appropriateness of any specific confidence rating. Chief amongst these new general licenses is the much anticipated OFAC General License H which authorizes U.S. Owned or controlled foreign entities to engage in transactions with Iran that are otherwise prohibited by 31 C.F.R.

In order to support the charges against IPSA, OFAC unnecessarily concocted a theory which effectively repeals Iran General License H and substantially increases the risk that U.S. Companies will be fined for what had previously thought to be legal activities by foreign subsidiaries involving Iran. Jan 25, 2016 As OFAC’s Frequently Asked Questions Relating to the Lifting of Certain U.S. Sanctions Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Implementation Day explains, the authorizations in General License H for U.S. Persons extend to “U.S. Persons who may be hired as outside legal counsel or consultants to draft, alter, advise,. OFAC regulations prohibit transactions with certain persons and organizations listed on the OFAC website as 'Terrorists' and 'Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons,' as well as listed embargoed countries and regions.

History

Involvement of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in economic sanctions against foreign states dates to the War of 1812, when Secretary Albert Gallatin administered sanctions against Great Britain in retaliation for the impressment of American sailors.^[4]^[8]

The Division of Foreign Assets Control, the immediate predecessor to OFAC, was established in December 1950. Predecessor agencies of the Division of Foreign Assets Control include Foreign Funds Control, which existed from 1940 to 1947, and the Office of International Finance (1947 to 1950). OFAC's earliest predecessor, Foreign Funds Control, was established by Executive Order 8389 as a unit of the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury on April 10, 1940. The authority to establish Foreign Funds Control was derived from the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917. Among other operations, Foreign Funds Control administered wartime import controls over enemy assets and restrictions on trade with enemy states. It also participated in administering the Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals, or the 'Black List', and took censuses of foreign-owned assets in the United States and American-owned assets abroad. Foreign Funds Control was abolished in 1947, with its functions transferred to the newly established Office of International Finance (OIF). In 1948, OIF activities relating to blocked foreign funds were transferred to the Office of Alien Property, an agency within the Department of Justice.^[9]

The Division of Foreign Assets Control was established in the Office of International Finance by a Treasury Department order in 1950, following the entry of the People's Republic of China into the Korean War; President Harry S. Truman declared a national emergency and blocked all Chinese and North Korean assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction. In addition to blocking Chinese and North Korean assets, the Division administered certain regulations and orders issued under the amended Trading with the Enemy Act.^[8] On October 15, 1962, by a Treasury Department order, the Division of Foreign Assets Control became the Office of Foreign Assets Control.^[9] https://empireyellow493.weebly.com/blog/rocket-league-download-mac-os-x.

Authority and activities

OFAC is headquartered in the Treasury Annex, located on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Madison Place, N.W., in Washington, D.C.

In addition to the Trading with the Enemy Act and the various national emergencies currently in effect, OFAC derives its authority from a variety of U.S. federal laws regarding embargoes and economic sanctions.^[10]

In enforcing economic sanctions, OFAC acts to prevent 'prohibited transactions', which are described by OFAC as 'trade or financial transactions and other dealings in which U.S. persons may not engage unless authorized by OFAC or expressly exempted by statute'. OFAC has the authority to grant exemptions to prohibitions on such transactions, either by issuing a general license for certain categories of transactions, or by specific licenses issued on a case-by-case basis.^[8] OFAC administers and enforces economic sanctions programs against countries, businesses or groups of individuals, using the blocking of assets and trade restrictions to accomplish foreign policy and national security goals. See United States embargoes for a list of affected countries.

Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the U.S. President is empowered during national emergencies to block the removal of foreign assets under the jurisdiction of the United States. That mandate is executed by OFAC by issuing regulations that direct financial institutions accordingly.

Between 1994 and 2003, OFAC collected over $8 million in violations of the Cuban embargo, against just under $10,000 for terrorism financing violations. It had ten times more agents assigned to tracking financial activities relating to Cuba than to Osama Bin Laden.^[11]

As part of its efforts to support the Iraq sanctions, in 2005, OFAC fined Voices in the Wilderness $20,000 for gifting medicine and other humanitarian supplies to Iraqis.^[12] In a similar case, OFAC imposed and attempted to collect a $10,000 fine, plus interest, against peace activist Bert Sacks for taking medicine to residents of Basra;^[13] charges against Sacks were dismissed by the court in December 2012.^[14]

In October 2007, a set of Spanish travel agency websites had their domain name access disabled by eNom: the domain names had been on the OFAC blacklist.^[15]^[16] When queried, the U.S. Treasury referred to a 2004 press release that claimed the company 'had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba'.^[15]

In the case of United States v. Banki, on June 5, 2010, a U.S. citizen was convicted of violating the Iran Trade Embargo for failing to request Iranian currency transfer licenses in advance from OFAC. On August 25, 2010, the Iranian American Bar Association announced that it would file an amicus curiae brief with the Court of

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