OFAC Advisory - Advisory Regarding the Obfuscation of Critical Information in Financial and Trade Transactions Involving the Crimea Region of Ukraine (Issued July 30, 2015)

Ed. Note: if you’re new to TURBOFAC, please take note that the text string filtration function generally shouldn’t be used for terms such as “ordinarily resident,” “causing” or “new debt”. For research on the meaning of words and phrases such as those, i.e. terms central to the key legal issues in sanctions law that appear on a cross-programmatic basis, you’re typically better off locating and checking the appropriate box in the “Key Legal Issues” search category, which will limit the results to those that have been manually assessed as being relevant for the interpretation of the terms at issue.

Try typing your search term (“ordinarily resident,” “new debt,” or something else) in the “Find a Search Filter” box at the top of the page, and the corresponding “Key Legal Issues” check box will pop up instantly, if one exists. Once you check the box (e.g. “new debt,” with ~55 results), you can always use the text string filtration function to further refine your search (e.g. by typing “invoice” and narrowing the ~55 results to ~10).

Note in addition that the same applies to text string searches such as “14071” (if you’re looking for items related to EO 14071). By typing “14071” in the “Find a Search Filter” field up top, you will be able to instantly narrow the results down to items manually assessed as relating to EO 14071. Ditto terms such as “515.204” or “Iran General License G” (try the “Discrete Legal Provision” search category). Please contact [email protected] or [email protected] with any questions on search results and efficiency.

Please click "Apply Text String Filters" again after clicking the "Close" button immediately below.

TURBOFAC Commentary (395 words)

Notes:

1) As a general matter, the purpose of this Advisory is not to interpret the scope of the embargo pertaining to Crimea, which as of 11/2021 has still not been implemented in regulations, but to put U.S. persons on notice as to certain common practices used by non-U.S. persons to induce U.S. persons to violate the 13685. For practical purposes, the document puts U.S. persons on notice as to what common evasive practices the failure of which to identify would constitute, in the absence of diligence that OFAC would consider adequate, a "reason to know" that a given transaction involved Crimea.

Compare with other documents and enforcement actions pertaining to the so-called "general inventory rule," part of which (560.204) explicitly conditions violations arising from transshipments to Iran on the U.S. person having a "reason to...

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Advisory Regarding the Obfuscation of Critical Information in Financial and Trade Transactions Involving the Crimea Region of Ukraine (Issued July 30, 2015)

TURBOFAC Commentary (395 words)