FAC No. 105290
May 15, 1987
Dear Mr. Kilpatrick:
I am writing in response to your letter of May 5, 1987 regarding the effect of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, Public Law 99-440 ("the Act"), upon the purchase and trade of South African stamps.
Before addressing your specific questions, it might be helpful to review a relevant provision of the Act. Section 303(a) of the Act prohibits United States importation of articles "grown, produced, manufactured by, marketed, or otherwise exported by a parastatal organization of South Africa." Section 303(b) of the Act states, in relevant part, that "the term 'parastatal organization' means a corporation, partnership, or entity owned, controlled, or subsidized by the Government of South Africa."
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control ("FAC") has issued regulations implementing the section 303 ban on...
1) The context of FAC No. 105290 is its attachment as an appendix to the record of a Congressional hearing concerning the sanctions regime applicable to apartheid South Africa. It, along with the other correspondence involving Norman Kilpatrick, was submitted by a House member.
OFAC is frequently presented with questions concerning what, if any, de facto “de minimis” thresholds might apply to sanctions laws that do not contain or otherwise gesture at any de minimis threshold. Another related question is the degree to which sanctions regulations purport to regulate non-commercial interactions between friends and relatives that are acting with knowledge as to the sanctions-implicating facts at issue. The argument for prohibitions being interpreted with leniency is at its height where, as here to some extent, activity is both de minimis from a value perspective and non-commercial in character.
For example, OFAC interprets the term “service,”...