The United States Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued its quarterly report on license determinations under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) program. The report on TSRA program covered the issuance of license determinations for exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices to Iran and Sudan. Initial readings of this report indicate that there may be an increased backlog at OFAC right now as the average time of a license determination has once again increased.

In the newest quarterly report, which covers the fourth quarter of 2009, OFAC reports that the average time of a license determination under the TSRA program is 61 days. That is four days longer than the previous TSRA quarterly report which indicated the average time was 57 days. Additionally, the report stated that under the TSRA program 403 applications were received and only 1 application was denied. The rest of the applications were either license approvals, license amendments, or return without action determinations.

Furthermore, the one license denial was for an application to export a medical device to Iran. That denial determination took OFAC 97 days to come to. Approvals on the other hand, take an average of 85 days. In both instances, OFAC is definitely taking its time to come to the determination. As a recent GAO report on OFAC pointed out, OFAC is doing an excellent job in enforcing the regulations. As such, it seems to be that they are carefully reading and considering the license applications they receive.

Given these findings, it is just as important as ever to file your application with the assistance of experienced counsel who knows how OFAC works. This is particularly true given the length of time OFAC is taking to come to determinations on license requests.

The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in OFAC litigation. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 at 202-351-6161 or ferrari@ferrari-legal.com.