OFAC republishes Russia sanctions regulations

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) has announced that it ‘is amending and reissuing, in their entirety, the Ukraine-Related Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 589, and renaming the regulations the Ukraine-/Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations.’

It said, ‘This administrative action replaces the regulations that were published in abbreviated form on May 8, 2014 with a more comprehensive set of regulations that includes additional interpretive and definitional guidance, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public.’

OFAC is also revising several FAQs for the Ukraine Russia-Related Sanctions Regulations – for example, it clarifies key terms in legislation, including the Sovereignty, Integrity, Democracy and Economic Stability of Ukraine Act 2014 (‘SSIDES’).

Defining ‘“[F]acilitate[ion] . . . for or on behalf of”’, it explains,

‘For purposes of section 10(a)(2) of SSIDES, facilitating a significant transaction for or on behalf of a person will be interpreted to mean providing assistance for a transaction from which the person in question derives a particular benefit of any kind (as opposed to a generalized benefit conferred upon undifferentiated persons in aggregate). Assistance may include the provision or transmission of currency, financial instruments, securities, or any other value; purchasing, selling, transporting, swapping, brokering, financing, approving, or guaranteeing; the provision of other services of any kind; the provision of personnel; or the provision of software, technology, or goods of any kind.’

See the new rules at: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/fr87_26094.pdf

And the FAQs: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/faqs/updated/2022-04-29