Yesterday, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) published Iran General License I which is designed to permit U.S. persons seeking to sell civil passenger aircraft and parts to Iran to negotiate executory contracts to make such sales provided that all such contracts are expressly contingent upon OFAC approval. Four new FAQs, labelled J.9 through through J.12, were added to explain the general license.

Specifically, the license permits “all transactions ordinarily incident to negotiation of and entry into” contracts for activities eligible for authorization under OFAC’s policy permitting the sale of passenger aircraft and parts to Iran. The general license is needed because the new policy required a license for the sales of those aircraft and parts and, by extension, would require licenses for the negotiations leading to such sales. At least one company had requested and received such licenses, leading OFAC to decide to issue a general license to eliminate the burden of processing such applications.

Not surprisingly, the license excludes any negotiations with “any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to any part of 31 C.F.R. chapter V other than part 560.” The key language here is “other than part 560.” Some Iranian airlines, and theoretical purchasers of passenger aircraft and parts, are designated under OFAC regulations other than the Iran Transactions and Sanctions Regulations found in part 560. For example, Mahan Air, the éminence noire of Iranian airlines, is sanctioned under part 561 (Iran Financial Sanctions Regulations) and part 594 (Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations). Iran Air, the great white whale of Iranian airlines, on the other hand, is sanctioned only under part 560 as an entity controlled by the Government of Iran, meaning that negotiations with Iran Air under General License I would be permitted.

The most significant take-away from General License I is less what it specifically permits than what it implies is not permitted.  Many U.S. companies outside the aircraft sector, hoping against hope that all U.S. sanctions against Iran may soon be lifted, are wondering if they can negotiate with potential Iranian customers “just in case” provided any resulting agreement is contingent upon OFAC approval.  The answer now is quite clearly no unless a specific license to do so is obtained from OFAC.

Photo Credit: Iran Air Boeing 747SP-86 by Aero Icarus [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/91vXkv [cropped and processed]]

ABOVE: Cyan Headquarters

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Today’s question is this: say you are a UK-based company that manufactures a product with U.S.-origin content which you want to sell to Iran? How do you do it?

According to this article, you sell the stuff to Iran through your subsidiary in India. Yes, seriously, that’s the answer that was given:

Cyan was also required to check if an export license would be required to export its products from both the UK and the US, since there is an element of its product that originates in the US. “UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) was very helpful in assisting us and confirming that no license would be required if we ship our products from our subsidiary in India …,” explains John [Cronin, Chairman of Cyan].

Oh dear. Let’s hope that’s a misquote or a misunderstanding. If you are a foreign person with a product with U.S. origin content, section 560.205 of the Iran Transactions and Sanctions Regulations quite clearly state the circumstances in which that product can be sold to Iran. That export is permissible only if the U.S. content has been “substantially transformed” into a new product or if all such content which would require a license from the United States constitutes less than 10 percent of the total value of the foreign product.

It does not say that the foreign person can, as the article suggests the Cyan chairman says, sell the product with U.S. content to Iran if you simply try to sell it through another non-U.S. subsidiary in India or elsewhere. I suspect that, as European companies rush to exploit the Iran market after Implementation Day, this will not be the first possible misunderstanding of the scope of the remaining U.S. rules and when they apply. (I am, of course, assuming that Cyan, in fact, determined the exceptions in section 560.205 applied and that Cronin was either misquoted or misunderstood the actual reason his exports to Iran passed the test.)

Photo Credit:Cyan Headquarters via Google Maps [Fair Use]

We have followed the saga of Epsilon Electronics extensively, beginning with the The Auto Sound and the OFAC Fury Part I and Part II and ending most recently with Epsilon, Epsilon. Well, it seems that the story may be drawing to a close. On Monday, a federal district court granted OFAC summary judgment on its motion to dismiss Epsilon Electronics complaint challenging the $4.073 million dollar fine imposed on Epsilon by OFAC. The opinion can be viewed and downloaded here.

The court considered each of Epsilon’s arguments and easily dispatched all of them, only barely concealing its opinion that Epsilon’s arguments were largely frivolous. We discussed our own view of Epsilon’s arguments, particularly its bizarre claim that the fine violated the U.S. Constitution’s Excessive Fines clause, in The Auto Sound and the OFAC Fury Part II. The court, not surprisingly, held that the Excessive Fines clause did not preclude the $4 million fine given that Epsilon sold $3.4 million in goods to Iran and given that this fine was only one-third of the statutory maximum.

Epsilon’s due process claim fared no better with the court.   The court paid particular attention to what was, perhaps, Epsilon’s gravest error in its dealing with OFAC, one we noted in Epsilon, Epsilon, our third post on this case.  Two separate subpoenas, the court noted, provided Epsilon with adequate notice of OFAC’s investigation.   The court went on:

Almost two years later, on May 6, 2014, OFAC issued its pre-penalty notice, which informed the plaintiff that it had 30 days to provide a written response to the pre-penalty notice. … The plaintiff provided a two-page response to the pre-penalty
notice on June 6, 2014 … . This series of events shows that the plaintiff had ample opportunity to respond to OFAC’s inquiries into its dealings with Asra International and to OFAC’s detailed pre-penalty notice. Procedural due process demands nothing more.

The court’s reference to the “detailed” pre-penalty notice and the plaintiff’s “two-page” response make clear that the court had little patience for a due process claim once Epsilon had squandered its opportunity to provide an adequate response to the pre-penalty notice.

Finally, the court dismissed Epsilon’s arguments that its sales to Iran were permissible under the “inventory exception” embodied in OFAC’s “Guidance on Transshipments to Iran.” According to the court, the guidance does not permit sales into non-U.S inventory outside Iran where the U.S. exporter has “reason to know” that the goods were ultimately destined to Iran. The court cited, as we have, the distributor’s website as ample evidence that Epsilon had reason to know that its distributor was dealing principally, if not exclusively, with Iran.