630. Is the provision or delivery of goods or services to an Iranian counterparty after November 4, 2018 allowed?
The wind-down period has ended and the United States intends to fully enforce the sanctions that have come back into effect. The provision or delivery of goods or services and/or the extension of additional loans or credits to an Iranian counterparty after November 4, 2018 — even pursuant to written contracts or written agreements entered into prior to May 8, 2018 — may result in the imposition of U.S. sanctions unless such activities are exempt from regulation, authorized by OFAC, or otherwise not sanctionable.
The United States maintains authorizations and exceptions under U.S. sanctions that allow for the sale of agricultural commodities, food, medicine, and medical devices to Iran by U.S. persons and non-U.S. persons. However, these authorizations and exceptions do not apply to transactions involving persons on...
1) The phrasing of this FAQ is important evidence concerning the practical, as opposed to theoretical, limits of OFAC's authorities to impose secondary sanctions for certain "significant" transactions and use its "derivative designation" authorities to sanction non-U.S. persons for transactions that are outside the scope of any primary sanctions prohibition and otherwise have no U.S. nexus.
In this first paragraph of this FAQ, OFAC is, by referencing "November 4, 2018," referring to various sanctions provisions in EO 13846 that applied only as of November 5, 2018, i.e. standard "material assistance" derivative designation criteria (at Sec. 1 of EO 13846) and CAPTA "secondary sanctions" for FFIs (Sec. 2 of EO 13846). The sanctions provisions activated as of November 5, 2018 included blocking sanctions for any person determined to have "materially assisted,...