Case No. IA-18313
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COICOMED L.L.C.
400 O Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
This responds to your correspondence dated January 18, 2012 (the "Application"), to the Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), on behalf of COICOMED L.L.C. ("COICOMED"), a business entity located in the State of California, seeking authorization to export satellite digital elevation model or digital surface model ("DEM/DSM") images of Iran’s cities to Data Ware Information Technology, a company located in Iran.
The Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 560 (the "ITSR"), generally prohibit the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply of any goods, technology, or services, directly or indirectly, from the United States or by a United States person, wherever located, to Iran or the Government of Iran. ITSR, § 560.204. The prohibition on the exportation of services contained in section 560.204 applies to...
1) Satellite images considered exempt "informational materials" that can be sold to Iran provided that they were "fully created and in existence at the date of the transactions" and "not created at the behest of any persons in Iran."
Note the relationship between these two concepts. Fully created and in existence at the date of the transaction derives from the regulations, while "not created at the behest of any persons in Iran" does not. OFAC apparently wants to clarify that if a material is created "at the behest of any persons in Iran," it will be considered outside the scope of the exemption, even if the request to create the materials could arguably be construed as not constituting a "transaction." The obverse of this is “transactions” (e.g. subscription fees) envisaging exports of informational materials not fully created at the time of the subscription...