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CU-2014-313324-1
Fleming Creative Concepts, LLC
c/o Frank Murru
1811 NW 51st Street #2729
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309
Dear Mr. Murru:
This is in response to your request dated October 14, 2014 (the “Application”), to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), on behalf of Fleming Creative Concepts, LLC (“Fleming Creative Concepts”), to import bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) from Atlantis Dolphin Cay, a facility located in the Bahamas, to an Aquatic Oasis facility located in Arizona. According to the Application, the dolphins are the progeny of dolphins originally collected in Cuba, sold to Dolphin Discovery, a company based in Mexico, subsequently placed in a Dolphin Discovery facility in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, and finally sold to Atlantis Dolphin Cay, a dolphin facility in the Bahamas.
The Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R Part 515 (the “Regulations”)...
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1) Section 515.204 of the CACR prohibits persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from "deal[ing] in or engag[ing] in any transaction with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise" is "derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba," and the term "merchandise" is defined at 515.331 to include "all goods, wares and chattels of every description without limitation of any kind".
Dolphins are squarely within the definition of the term "merchandise" at 515.331, and a dolphin born outside of Cuba that is "the progeny of" a Cuban-origin dolphin is, at least arguably if not clearly something "derived in whole or in part of [an] article which is the growth [or] produce...of Cuba". Nevertheless, OFAC determines here that it "does not consider...