Case No. SY-2017-339809-1
[ ]
Baxter International Inc.
One Baxter Parkway
Deerfield, IL 60015
Dear [ ]
This is in response to your request of January 29, 2017 (the "Application"), on behalf of Baxter International, Inc. ("Baxter"), to the Office Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in which you seek authorization for Baxter and its non-US. foreign subsidiaries to engage in certain transactions related to the export of non-U.S. origin medical devices to Syria. In your Application you state that Baxter is headquartered in the United States and that Baxter's non-U.S. foreign subsidiaries seek authorization to sell and ship hemodialysis equipment (the "Products") to [ ] in Syria for further distribution and use by Syrian patients. Regarding the products you also state that none are manufactured in the United States, none are manufactured using U.S.-origin technology, and Baxter has verified...
1) 542.525 of the SySR authorizes "[t]he exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States or by a U.S. person, wherever located, to Syria...of services that are ordinarily incident to the exportation or reexportation to Syria...of non-U.S.-origin...medical devices that would be designated as EAR 99...if it were subject to the EAR..."
When a non-U.S. subsidiary of a U.S. person exports qualifying non-U.S. origin medical devices from a third country, is the U.S. person parent company able to "facilitate" or otherwise be involved in the the transaction? This guidance letter appears to address that question such that the answer is "yes". Without knowing precisely what the U.S. person "Baxter International, Inc.'s proposed activities" were, they were clearly within the scope of 542.207 (services)...