Note Common to Venezuela General License 20 and 591.510

*Note common to certain GLs: When it was initially issued as Venezuela General License 20, this was one of 12 GLs that pre-dated the blocking of the Government of Venezuela, pursuant to EO 13884, and was amended to account for the blocking. Except as discussed below, the substance of what the GL authorizes remains unchanged as a result of EO 13884. OFAC did not amend any FAQ dealing primarily with this FAQ as a result of the blocking of the GOV.

1.1) See general discussion of the “official business” licenses and exemptions at General Note on Exemptions and General Licenses for the “Official Business” of the U.S. Government (and/or United Nations) and Employees, Contractors, or Grantees Thereof. This provision is standard; there is no reason to believe that it is or will be interpreted differently than its analogues in other sanctions programs.

1.2) By its terms, the GL is not limited to activities in which a U.S. person is a party to an underlying transaction. This means that U.S. persons may engage in ancillary transactions that would be subject to the otherwise-applicable prohibitions, even if such activities pertain to a transaction involving no U.S. person. This is not uncommon, but this GL is notable insofar as it was issued specifically with this in mind, at least with some of the entities listed. Neither the Venezuelan Central Bank nor, for example, the Fondo Latinoamericano de Reservas, are U.S. persons. To that end, the obvious purpose of the GL with respect to such persons is to permit U.S. persons to play various roles—presumably dollar clearing in particular—in transactions between non-U.S. person institutions and the Venezuelan Central Bank.

2) See comments to Venezuela GL 19 concerning the potential difficulties presented by the fact that this GL does not authorize transactions in which sanctioned central bank directors of the bank have an "interest."

3) Note that on 12-21-22, Venezuela General License 20 was implemented in the VSR at 591.510. Note that the original version said that it authorized transactions "that are for the official business of the following entities are authorized" (irregular), while the amended version says "that are for the conduct of the official business of the following entities by employees, grantees, or contractors thereof". This is presumably a technical correction (see the implementing FR notice at https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/usg_io_official_business_regulations_amendment.pdf).

4) The GL was amended upon the blocking of the Government of Venezuela to specify the names of a number of UN-related agencies that were, presumably, within the scope of the original GL 20.

5) This GL (see web version) authorizes transactions "for the official business" of certain agencies "involving" the GOV and/or the Venezuelan Central Bank. It is unclear whether a minor degree of "involvement" of a GOV person or entity can have the effect of authorizing an entire underlying transactions that may or may not have been able to go forward even without the GOV "involvement." Compare comments to Venezuela GL 31, discussing this issue in further detail.

6) On Jan. 21, 2020, the GL was amended to change the authorization for the "Worldbank" to "The World Bank Group (also referred to as the World Bank), including the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development Association (IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)." This was probably done to resolve the confusion over whether MIGA and ICSID, which are part of the World Bank group but not "Specialized Agencies" of the UN, were meant to have qualified for the GL as it was initially issued.

7) [Reserved]

8) See FAQ # 933, regarding the expiration date to the web version of the GL (no longer relevant).

9) [Reserved]

10) http://www.unsceb.org/directory is a broken link. See https://www.un.org/en/pdfs/un_system_chart.pdf (https://archive.md/wip/Uz33k). Note that OFAC linked to that chart in FAQ # 925.

11) See Corporación Andina de Fomento (2021 SEC Filing) for discussion concerning dealings with that entity and "new debt" of the GOV that is excluded from the scope of this GL.

*General Note re: The Relationship Between Venezuela-related Loose-leaf GLs and 591.404 (Transactions ordinarily incident to a licensed transaction)

Prior to November, 2019, 591.201 (“Prohibited transactions”) only prohibited transactions within the scope of EO 13692. Because of that, this provision did not, as a technical matter, apply to transactions ordinarily incident to any Venezuela-related general license, except insofar as the otherwise prohibited transactions licensed were (i) prohibited by EO 13692, or (ii) prohibited by another Venezuela-related EO and explicitly licensed in the VSR. Prior to November, 2019, (ii) only applied to the legal services and emergency medical services GLs contained in the VSR—those GLs specifically stated that they applied to activities prohibited by EO 13692 and any other EO issued pursuant to the national emergency declared in EO 13692 (e.g. EO 13850). As of November, 2019, however, 591.201 applies on its face to all prohibitions imposed by all Venezuela-related EOs, meaning that 591.404 applies to all Venezuela-related loose-leaf GLs, most of which do not explicitly account for transactions “ordinarily incident” to the activities authorized. See for example Venezuela General License 27 - Certain Transactions Related to Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights Authorized, and comments thereto. While it may be comforting to have this interpretive provision apply in a technical legal sense to all Venezuela-related loose-leaf GLs, it is fairly clear form the context of those GLs that OFAC considered the “ordinarily incident” interpretation explicit here to be implicit within all of the GLs that did not pertain to prohibitions imposed by EO 13692. Compare 515.421, and comments thereto (impliedly recognizing that the standard "ordinarily incident" interpretation is inherent in all GLs). In other words, the formal linkage between this provision and the loose-leaf Venezuela-related GLs pertaining to prohibitions other than those of EO 13692 should have no practical effect on the scope of what is actually permitted as a result of the existence of those GLs, such as this one, that do not deal exclusively EO 13692.

*For expired/superseded versions of this GL, see https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/venezuela-related-sanctions/archive-of-revoked-and-expired-general-licenses. We note that while we have included some expired and/or revoked GLs in the research system as stand-alone searchable items, we avoid clutter by removing GLs once they have been superseded by amended versions.