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Case No. UKRAINE-EO13685-2018-350266-1
[ ]
Senior Contracts and Compliance Manager
ACR Electronics, Inc.
5757 Ravenswood Road
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312
Dear Ms. [ ]:
This is in reply to your request of December 11, 2017, and supplemental correspondence dated May 24, 2018 and July 18, 2019 (the "Application"), submitted on behalf of ACR Electronics, Inc. (ACR), to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) seeking guidance on utilizing TC NIIR (NIIR), a testing facility in Moscow, Russia, for testing rescue beacons (the "Beacons"). According to the Application, there are five testing facilities throughout the world where the Beacons may be tested, including at NIIR. You state that the U.S. testing facility gives priority to military projects, such that testing may be backlogged at the U.S. facility for untold amounts of time, while the U.K. testing...
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1) BACKGROUND
NIIR (“Radio Research & Development Institute”) is a Moscow-headquartered Russian “Federal State Budgetary Institution,” i.e. an entity that operates under the jurisdiction of the federal government and is funded through the federal budget, which among other activities, operates testing centers with experience in testing equipment for information and communication technologies. (See www.niir.ru).
As explained in the guidance letter NIIR operated “TC NIIR” a “testing facility in Moscow” that the U.S. person applicant wanted to engage notwithstanding that TC NIIR “has a possible connection to Omega, another testing facility in the Crimea region of Ukraine”. OFAC, evidently conducting its own research on NIIR, concluded that “however the Omega website no longer works and in conducting web searches it appears Omega was combined with NIIR.”
2) INDIRECT IMPORTATION OF SERVICES THROUGH ENGAGEMENTS WITH NON-SANCTIONED THIRD-COUNTRY/JURISDICTION ENTITIES
The