PRINT
Case No. BU-2013-305114-1
Samuel Witten, Esq.
Arnold & Porter LLP
555 12th St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20004
Dear Mr. Witten:
This is in response to your request of October 21, 2013, on behalf of the International Wood Products Association (“IWPA”), an international trade association headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), and to a separate letter of June 17, 2014, from the IWPA to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counter Threat Finance and Sanctions, Bureau of Economic & Business Affairs, the U.S. Department of State (collectively, the “Application”), seeking authorization for IWPA and its Voting and Associate Members, as these categories include U.S. persons, to engage directly or indirectly with Myanmar Timber Enterprise (“MTE”), an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant...
Click the appropriate link below for access to this file.
Click the appropriate link below for access to this file.
1) Background
Case No. BU-2013-305114-1 is the cover for License No. BU-2013-305114-1. We do not have License No. BU-2013-305114-1 on file, but the cover letter reproduces the key language of the authorization section of the license.
At the time of the issuance of the license, Myanmar Timber Enterprise (“MTE”) was blocked pursuant to 13464 (it had initially been named an SDN in 2008. As of 5/10/2021, MTE is blocked pursuant to EO 14014). MTE is (and was) a state-owned enterprise responsible for the production and export of timber on behalf of the Burmese military regime ("MTE....has monopoly control of the Burmese timber trade" - letter from applicant to the State Department at p. 4 of the native PDF file).
The scope of this license relates, impliedly, to the question addressed in