A un-named U.S. person has agreed to pay to OFAC $1,427,230 to settle allegations that, among other things, he violated U.S. sanctions by providing services to an unnamed Iranian company he owned. He founded the company while he was living in Iran and before he became a U.S. person. According to the OFAC Enforcement Release linked above, the violative services consisted of participating between June 2019 and August 2020 in 19 virtual meetings with senior officials of the Iranian company to discuss company matters.
OFAC cited, as an aggravating factor, that this was a willful violation. The evidence that this was a willful violation is frankly pretty thin gruel. Nothing in the Enforcement Release shows any effort by the U.S. person to hide or conceal his activities. Instead, OFAC provides this:
Throughout the relevant time period, U.S. Person-1 was aware of U.S. sanctions on Iran. In
2000 . . . [he] co-authored an article in a leading newspaper about Iran’s digital revolution and the challenges of the Iran sanctions program to Iran’s information technology sector.
And this:
U.S. Person-1 is a sophisticated businessperson who spent decades working in Iran’s
information technology sector . . . aware of the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran’s information technology sector.
There is little doubt that he knew, and these factors support that he knew, that he could not send items to Iran. But this is far from proving he knew that a phone call to Iran was a violation. Also, why, as a newly-minted permanent resident, would he want to jeopardize that valuable status by violating the Iran sanctions?
Don’t get me wrong. These virtual meetings were indeed punishable violations. Penalties can be imposed even without knowledge of wrongdoing by the violator. There really is no need or reason to juice up these charges with shaky willful conduct allegations.
Bonus Observation: OFAC pretends to be concerned, for some reason, about the identity of the players here, but the agency reveals enough information that, if you know how to use Google, you can quickly figure out the name of the company and the likely identity of the individual. Several mentioned and irrelevant facts could have been omitted to prevent that from happening.
Bonus Question: By protecting the Iranian company through concealing its name, is OFAC providing a service to that company in Iran?