AGENCY: Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury.
ACTION: Final rule.
SUMMARY: The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury is issuing this final rule, “Economic Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines,” as enforcement guidance for persons subject to the requirements of U.S. sanctions statutes, Executive orders, and regulations. This rule was published as an interim final rule with request for comments on September 8, 2008. This final rule sets forth the Enforcement Guidelines that OFAC will follow in determining an appropriate enforcement response to apparent violations of U.S. economic sanctions programs that OFAC enforces. These Enforcement Guidelines are published as an Appendix to the Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations.
DATES: This final rule is effective November 9, 2009.
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Specific Responses to Comments ...
1) Because the Research System commentary is focused primarily on the scope and operation of OFAC's prohibitions, licenses, and exemptions—rather than the enforcement guidelines determining the severity of penalties once the prohibitions have been violated—we defer extensive comment on this FR notice.
2) As it relates to the fundamental scope of the prohibitions, one notable aspect of this commentary on the enforcement guidelines is OFAC confirming that even the actions of "rogue employees" will be attributed to organizations employing such persons, with penalties to be assessed against the employing organization to be potentially mitigated on the basis of the underlying facts. To some degree, this can be viewed as a statement concerning the scope of the term “U.S. person,” or OFAC’s general view of the jurisdictional scope of its primary sanctions prohibitions. For example, a U.S. person organization will be held liable for the actions of...