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Case No. MUL-2016-326574-1
Alicia Neubig
Latham & Watkins, LLP
555 Eleventh Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004
Dear Ms. Neubig:
This is in reply to the request dated February 5, 2016, to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on behalf of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), requesting interpretive guidance to confirm the applicability of certain humanitarian authorizations under the Iran, Sudan, and Syria sanctions programs administered by OFAC. Specifically, the ICRC wishes to ensure that U.S. persons working as employees of or contractors for the ICRC will be authorized to provide humanitarian services in support of, or on behalf of, the ICRC in these three countries, pursuant to relevant OFAC general licenses.
The Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 560 (ITSR), generally prohibit the importation into the United...
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1) The ICRC is a Swiss entity. Iran GL E provides that “nongovernmental organizations are authorized to export or reexport services to or related to Iran in support of [certain specified] not-for-profit activities that are designed to directly benefit the Iranian people.” 542.516 of the SySR, as it existed at the time, likewise stated that “[n]ongovernmental organizations are authorized to engage in the following transactions and activities.” The question is whether, where an NGO is not a U.S. person and therefore generally does not require OFAC authorization to engage in a given transaction, the NGO GL extends to “U.S. persons working as employees of or contractors for the [non-US NGO]” (will they be “authorized to provide humanitarian services in support of, or on behalf of” the non-US NGO. OFAC suggests that...