Today, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced the designation of three individuals and one entity pursuant to Executive Order 13224 as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). In addition, to these designations OFAC also removed Mohamed Ben Mohamed Abdelhedi from the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List). Abdelhedi was also previously designated as an SDGT. Abdelhedi, an Italian resident of Tunisian descent was taken of the of the UN Al Qaida sanctions list on May 1st of this year, nearly seven months prior to today’s removal.

Once a party has been designated for sanctions pursuant to UN sanctions resolutions, the U.S., pursuant to the united Nations Participation Act (UNPA), will set about putting them on the OFAC SDN list fairly soon thereafter. Unfortunately, the reverse is not true. As can be seen here the removal of a party from the UN list does not absolutely compel the U.S. to remove the same individual from the U.S. list, although I think its safe to assume that Treasury would publicly state that such removal would be one of the factors they would look at in considering whether to remove a name from the OFAC SDN List. Hence, the U.S. seems to be a willing participant under the UNPA in adding parties to the SDN List, but a little less of a willing participant when it comes to taking them off. Indeed, there have been cases where the UN has removed sanctions against certain parties, and yet, the U.S. refuses to do so.

The reason why the timing of this is so interesting to me is the fact that I was told by someone recently that certain lawyers in the sanctions world had informed her that SDGTs are never taken off the OFAC SDN List. As I have written previously, that is simply not true. While the list of SDGTs is far less fluid in regards to removals than some of the other lists–for example, the Kingpin List–OFAC does remove SDGTs from time to time. Moreover, there is nothing to bar an SDGT from contesting their designation through OFAC’s administrative reconsideration process. That said, mere proffers of innocence are not very compelling to OFAC. Those seeking a legitimate shot at removal from the SDN List, should identify whether potential connections to nefarious activity had occured or exist and then endeavor to sever those ties or to demonstrate that those connections were cut in the past. Of course, if no such connections exist, then a designated party can still challenge the designation on the grounds of mistaken identity/circumstances, however, it should be understood that OFAC believes their designation process is 100% full proof so the removal process might take longer than in such cases.