Trade Law Daily is providing readers with some recent top stories. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Fenwick & West will open an office in Washington, D.C., adding two partners for the new office, the firm announced on Aug. 31. Thomas Ensign and Melissa Duffy will both serve as partners in Fenwick's Antitrust and Trade Regulation practice. Duffy, who comes from Dechert, "advises on export controls, sanctions, trade policy, programs under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), regulation of emerging technologies, digital trade, CFIUS and national security issues involving U.S. agencies," Fenwick said. Ensign is an antitrust adviser on issues including intellectual property agreements, distribution arrangements and joint ventures. Fenwick, which says it concentrates on serving the technology and life sciences industries, has offices in California, New York City, Seattle and Shanghai.
A Romanian bank and its U.S. parent company were fined about $860,000 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and Syria, OFAC said in an enforcement notice. Romania-based First Bank SA processed nearly 100 transactions worth about $3.5 million through U.S. banks on behalf of sanctioned parties, the notice said. The bank continued to process transactions for Iranian customers after it was acquired by U.S.-based JC Flowers in 2018.
Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian national living in Montreal, was indicted by a grand jury July 30 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for illegally exporting laboratory equipment from the U.S. to Iran, the Department of Justice said. Kafrani co-owned Prolife Global, based in Canada, where he sought to purchase spectrometry equipment to ultimately ship to Iran, DOJ alleged. After failing to get one U.S. company to ship the equipment to Montreal, Kafrani found a second American company that sent the merchandise to Canada, DOJ said. Kafrani then sent the equipment to the United Arab Emirates, then reexported it to Iran, it said.
Strait Shipbrokers and its managing director, Murtuza Mustafa Munir Basrai, filed a complaint July 19 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging its Specially Designated Nationals listing (see 2101050012). The Trump administration made the designation after concluding the company helped with the transport of petroleum from Iran. Straight Shipbroker countered, claiming it's not required to check the origin of its cargo in its role as a broker and that the designation was made in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and its Fifth Amendment rights to due process (Strait Shipbrokers Pte. Ltd. et al. v. Blinken et al., D.C. Cir. #21-01946).
The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a New York online money transmitter and provider more than $1.4 million for violating U.S. sanctions on the Crimea region of Ukraine, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Payoneer came to a settlement agreement with OFAC after illegally processing more than 2,000 payments for parties in sanctioned countries, OFAC said in a July notice. The fine was OFAC’s third highest this year.
Citgo Petroleum filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, seeking to stop international trading company Teknik Trading from auctioning off its goods that are “stranded” because Citgo's parent company is subject to U.S. sanctions. According to a June 25 complaint, Citgo contracted Teknik to store then deliver over $11 million worth of goods intended for Citgo's parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA). Once PdVSA was sanctioned by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the goods were frozen (Citgo Petroleum Corporation v. Teknik Trading Inc., S.D. Tex #4:21-02086).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a June 13 opinion rejected Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska's challenge to his sanctions listing, granting the Office of Foreign Assets Control's motion for summary judgment. Deripaska, who argued his listing as part of the wave of sanctions in the wake of Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 violated multiple procedural and constitutional rights. Deripaska claimed that OFAC violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights by “relying on undisclosed classified information and failing to provide him with adequately detailed unclassified summaries of that information.” Deripaska is a “non-resident alien who lacks sufficient contact with the United States” to bring a due process challenge, Judge Amit Mehta said. Mehta said that “even if the court were to consider Deripaska’s due process claim on the merits, it would reject it” because the International Emergency Economic Powers Act explicitly says that OFAC can rely on classified information in its determinations.
Paul Marquardt joined Davis Polk as a partner in its Washington, D.C.-based Financial Institutions Group, the firm announced in a June 14 news release. Marquardt previously led the foreign investment and national security practice at Cleary Gottlieb, where he worked with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security.
Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen and daughter of the leader of Mexican drug trafficking group Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for violating the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, the Department of Justice said in a June 11 news release. Oseguera Gonzalez “engaged in financial dealings” with six Mexican companies that had been designated by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. She owned two OFAC-designated companies, J&P Advertising and JJGON S.P.R., and was a high-ranking officer at four other listed businesses. Oseguera Gonzalez's father, CJNG leader Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, and her uncle, Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, the leader of the Los Cuinis cartel, also were sanctioned by OFAC.