GE settles alleged Cuba violations

OFAC: fine was reduced because violations were voluntarily self-disclosed and constituted a non-egregious case.

OFAC has announced that the General Electric Corporation (‘GE’) has paid just over $2.7m to settle alleged violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations on behalf of three subsidiaries: Getsco Technical Services Inc., Bentley Nevada, and GE Betz.

It said the violations had occurred on 289 occasions, when the companies had ‘accepted payment from The Cobalt Refinery Company for goods and services provided to a Canadian customer of GE.’
‘Since June 1995, Cobalt had been identified as a specially designated national (SDN) of Cuba and appeared on OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons,’ said OFAC.

‘Publicly available information also demonstrated that GE’s former Canadian customer is a corporation with strong historic and then-current economic ties to the Cuban mining industry through its business partnerships and joint ventures with the Cuban government.

Cobalt is one of three entities owned by a public joint venture between GE’s Canadian customer and the Cuban government. From at least 1996 until the GE Companies terminated their relationship with their Canadian customer, the GE Companies maintained – and renewed on at least 18 occasions – this customer relationship despite the obvious sanctions risk posed by the relationship.’

OFAC said that the violations could have attracted a maximum statutory penalty of $18.78m, but the fine was reduced because the violations were voluntarily self-disclosed and constituted a non-egregious case.

See:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/CivPen/Documents/20191001_ge.pdf