OFAC issues first general licence for GLOMAG wind-down and designates 18 for human rights abuses
On 9 December, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) issued its first ever general licence under the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations.
The licence authorises
‘Certain Activities Necessary to the Wind Down of Transactions Involving Ventspils Freeport Authority, Ventspils Attistibas Agentura, Biznesa Attistibas Asociacija, and Latvijas Tranzita Biznesa Asociacija,’ all companies associated with Aivars Ventspils.
Ventspils is one of numerous parties (including the companies named above) designated by OFAC on 9 December, and is described by the agency as ‘…being a foreign person who is a current or former government official responsible for or complicit in, or directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery.’
On its website, the Steamship Mutual Insurance Company notes that ‘designation of the Ventspils Freeport Authority could affect use of the port by members. Any person providing material assistance to, or goods or services in support of Ventspils Freeport Authority risks the imposition of sanctions as set out in Executive Order 13818,’ but that there is, under the licence, ‘leeway…to take steps to wind down their use [of the port] by 8 January.’
Human rights abuse
In a related development, OFAC has marked World Human Rights Day by imposing sanctions against 18 individuals ‘located in Burma, Pakistan, Libya, Slovakia, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and South Sudan for their roles in serious human rights abuse.’
Amongst those designated are persons deemed responsible for human rights abuses, including mass rape and the torture and murder of women and children in Burma; a police superintendent in Pakistan who is accused of leading ‘a network of police and criminal thugs that were allegedly responsible for extortion, land grabbing, narcotics, and murder’; a Slovak businessman alleged to have ordered the assassination of an investigative journalist; and South Sudanese politicians alleged responsible for ordering extra-judicial killings.
‘The United States will not tolerate torture, kidnapping, sexual violence, murder, or brutality against innocent civilians. America is the world leader in combatting human rights abuse and we will hold perpetrators and enablers accountable wherever they operate,’ said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.
Leading US sanctions lawyer Erich Ferrari told WorldECR, ‘The GLOMAG program is one that we have long been hearing would be utilised in greater frequency and now we’re seeing that come to pass. I think there’s a couple reasons for that. First, it can be used to capture a broad range of activities, because it is intended to address corruption and human rights abuses – two categories under which a wide array of different activities could fall. Second, it has its own specific statutory authority underlying it – similar to the Kingpin Act, but different from the IEEPA-based sanctions – thus it is not reliant on the declaration of national emergencies which makes designations under its authority less susceptible to changing political developments. Finally, the statute underlying the program has specific criteria for removal of parties sanctioned under that authority. For these reasons, I think we’ll see it become more and more widely used, and that it will be a fluid program with a high volume of designees, as well as a higher (than usual) number of removals.’
See recent GLOMAG designations at:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20191209.aspx
and
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20191210.aspx
