Secondary Sanctions Enforcement Announcement - Petrochemical Commercial Company International (PCCI) of Bailiwick (Jersey and Iran), et al.

Date issued: May. 24 2011

TURBOFAC Commentary (183 words)

Notes:

1) This appears to be the first, and as of 12/2020 only ever secondary sanctions enforcement action in which, at least with respect to some companies, the government did not allege or at least imply that the sanctioned companies to had actual knowledge of their dealings with Iran. For those companies, Tanker Pacific and Ofer Brothers, the conduct may have constituted something closer to "willful blindness" than the sort of diligence failure characterizing many primary sanctions enforcement actions. This is suggested by the nature of the transaction sanctioned, i.e. the provision of a $8m+ tanker to IRISL.

It is also the first in sanctions were actually imposed (instead of waived) against companies that were not already subject to some form of sanction pursuant to a different authority (e.g. Iran or Syrian primary sanctions).

2) As clarified with the PdVSA announcement, there is no "50%" rule as it relates to the imposition of secondary sanctions, except for when blocking is one of the sanctions imposed.

3) These appear to be the first blocking sanctions imposed for purely secondarily-sanctionable conduct.