1248. Since January 2026, OFAC has issued a series of Venezuela-related General Licenses related to purchases and investment in Venezuela's natural resource sectors, such as Venezuela-related General Licenses (GLs) 48A and 50A, that include a reporting requirement. Which parties are responsible for providing such reports pursuant to those General Licenses?
In general, the parties engaged in the primary authorized activity are responsible for complying with the applicable reporting requirements in these Venezuela-related GLs. Parties that are only indirectly involved or providing services ancillary to the primary authorized activity are not required to file reports pursuant to the applicable license. For example, a company providing services for the generation of electricity in Venezuela under GL 48A would need to report such activities pursuant to that license, but a bank processing payments related to those services does not also need to provide a report. Similarly, under GL 50A, the parties listed in the annex would be required to provide reports describing their activities undertaken pursuant to the license, whereas the bank processing those related payments would not.
Date Released
April 14, 2026
1) All of the following GLs have a reporting requirement that applies on its face to “any person” that is engaged in certain specified activities pursuant to the GLs. Venezuela GL 46, Venezuela GL 47, Venezuela GL 48, Venezuela GL 50, Venezuela GL 51, Venezuela GL 52 and Venezuela GL 54. Some (e.g. GL 50) are so broad as to cover “[a]ny person that engages in transactions pursuant to this general license”. OFAC evidently did not appreciate that “any person” (on its face) could cover “any” of a dozen persons engaging in the same transaction pursuant to a given GL, and this FAQ seeks to remedy the undesirable result of requiring many persons to file the same or similar reports in connection with the same transaction. In doing so, OFAC sets out a “parties engaged in the primary authorized activity” standard. What OFAC appears to be signaling is that transactions “ordinarily incident” to a given underlying transaction are not generally subject to the reporting requirement. There will be instances in which it is not clear whether a given transaction is “ancillary” or “primary”. Note that this appears to be the first guidance that OFAC has issued of this nature.