Notes:

1) This notice announces "secondary sanctions" against a handful of Chinese and Russian persons pursuant to the INKSNA, a "secondary sanctions" statute that is often overlooked because it is seldom invoked and does not include any OFAC-administered sanctions provisions, e.g. blocking. Here, sanctions were all imposed on persons that had not previously been subject to sanctions. None of those on whom sanctions were imposed were, concurrent with this action by the Department of State, made subject to any OFAC-administered sanctions authority.

The announcement is worth taking note of in light of the fact that, at the time it was made, the activities deemed sanctionable appeared to be within the scope of several Iran-specific, OFAC-administered secondary sanctions authorities. According to the announcement, most of the sanctioned persons were sanctioned "for the transfer to or acquisition from Iran...of goods, services, or technology controlled under multilateral control lists (Missile Technology Control Regime, Australia Group, Chemical Weapons Convention, Nuclear Suppliers Group, Wassenaar Arrangement) or otherwise having the potential to make a material contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or cruise or ballistic missile systems [of Iran]. The latter category includes items of the same kind as those on multilateral lists but falling below the control list parameters when it is determined that such items have the potential of making a material contribution to WMD or cruise or ballistic missile systems, items on U.S. national control lists for WMD/missile reasons that are not on multilateral lists, and other items with the potential of making such a material contribution when added through case-by-case decisions."

Meanwhile, Sec. 104 of the CAATS Act calls for the mandatory imposition of sanctions against any person determined to "knowingly engage[] in any activity that materially contributes to the activities of the Government of Iran with respect to its ballistic missile program, or any other program in Iran for developing, deploying, or maintaining systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, including any efforts to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer, or use such capabilities..."

The actions of the entities sanctioned were evidently not deemed grave enough to warrant sanctioning pursuant to one of the more modern secondary sanctions authorities, including Sec. 104 of CAATSA. An alternative explanation is that the State Department did not consider that the transactions did not, in fact, "materially contribute[] to the [covered] activities of the Government of Iran" (CAATSA), but, instead, consisted of transfer of items "having the potential to make a material contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or cruise or ballistic missile systems [of Iran]" (INKSNA).

2) Note that this notice is illustrative, and that we do not include all INKSNA announcements in the Research System because the sanctions are neither imposed nor administered by OFAC. See State Department Non-Proliferation "Master Sanctions Chart" (INKSNA, IIANPA, CBW Act, Others), for a comprehensive list of sanctions imposed pursuant to INKSNA and similar authorities.