Today the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) fined Oregon orthodontic device manufacturer World Class Technology Corporation $43,200 for seven shipments of orthodontic devices valued at $59,886 to Iran. The shipments in question were transshipped through Germany, UAE and Lebanon.

OFAC noted that there were three aggravating factors. First, the company did not confess its sins voluntarily to OFAC but instead got caught. Second, company executives knew the orthodontics were going to Iran. Third, the company disrespected OFAC by not having an OFAC compliance program until 2008.

There is, of course, more than a little absurdity in the idea that every company in the U.S. must have an OFAC compliance program or bear the wrath of the agency. WCT is estimated to have between 50-99 employees. Its headquarters are pictured on the left. It has under $20 million in revenue per year currently and, no doubt, much less before it adopted its compliance program in 2008. How many agencies must small businesses bow down to through adopting compliance programs designed to assure that they do not transgress the regulations of that agency? Would any of them ever get any business done if they did?

OFAC cited five mitigating factors, which presumably saved WTC from a company crushing $1.75 million fine which OFAC noted was the statutory maximum. First, the transaction would likely have been licensed. Second, WCT had no sanctions history in the previous five years. Third, WCT agreed to toll the statute of limitations — the penalty imposed today covered violations dating back to 2008. Fourth, WCT ultimately adopted a compliance program. Fifth, WCT “lacked commercial sophistication in conducting international sales.”

The real face-palm moment here is mitigating factor five. OFAC admits that WCT should be given a break because it didn’t have the commercial savvy to understand that it was violating OFAC regulations. Only a few nanoseconds before OFAC was criticizing the company for not having an OFAC compliance program. How does this add up? Do they cancel each other out? More likely, OFAC wants to have it both ways rather than to confront the ugly fact that it has absolutely no outreach to small businesses like WCT, and itself bears some measure of blame for the exports of unsophisticated companies.

Ten years ago from this past Sunday, on August 21, 2006, I put up the first post on this blog. I had zero readers. I bet no one ever even read that post until, perhaps, today. In fact, according to my server logs, I had a grand total of 53 people come to read the blog in August 2006, and most of them were probably web-crawling robots.

Since then, I’ve put up 1,370 posts. The site has had 3.9 million visits. Each month, an average of 8,000 unique visitors drop by. And for that, I want to thank each and every one of my readers who have made this possible.

That includes the anonymous BIS agent in New Jersey who for several years posted anonymously from his home computer comments reviling me as an uneducated imposter. His chief complaint was that I referred to “BIS ALJs” rather than his preferred, and more eloquent, alternative: “Coast Guard ALJs Who Are Assigned To Hear BIS Cases But Who Are Paid By The Coast Guard Which In Turn Is Reimbursed By BIS For The ALJs’ Time.” I think he may have, in one of his comments, even called for my law school to revoke my degree and, in another, for me to refund all the legal fees that I had collected in my lifetime. He hasn’t been around for quite some time and I rather miss him.

I also want to thank the commenters who caught and pointed out things that I actually got wrong or that I should have mentioned but didn’t. I’ve learned things from them as I hope readers may have learned things from me.

Without question, thanks are also due to Jim Bartlett, who has regularly republished each and every post in The Daily Bugle, even ones where I tried to sneak in naughty words or risqué double entendres that might offend his family audience.

I’ve tried these last ten years to make export law entertaining, which, I suppose, is rather like trying to stage a punk rock version of La Bohème with a fifth grade cast and a pit orchestra of ukuleles — easier said than done and not something that will appeal to everyone. But once you’ve gone through the effort to rent the house and put a show like that on the stage, there’s no point in cancelling the performance.

Photo Credit: Blue Hour Capital Building by Clif Burns, via www.clifburns.net. Copyright 2016 Clif Burns