Over the weekend two large earthquakes occurred in northwestern Iran. Due to the magnitude of these earthquakes, hundreds died, thousands were injured, and tens of thousands were left without shelter or basic human necessities like potable water, food, and medicine. Due to the imposition of an extensive sanctions program by the U.S. targeting Iran, there may be difficulties in providing assistance to the earthquake relief effort. Moreover, there is sense of trepidation among those in the U.S. who would seek to aid those in need of help as a result of these earthquakes due to the perceived liability they may suffer as a result of sanctions violations. As a result of this trepidation, we have received a number of calls and emails from numerous organizations and individuals wanting to know what they can do to help out and still remain in compliance with sanctions targeting Iran administered by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). The following is some guidance on what may or may not be prohibited under the current regulations. Please keep in mind that this might change shortly, as OFAC is considering what action to take in light of the earthquakes and may be issuing a general license similar to the one they issued on December 31, 2003 for the earthquake in Bam, Iran.

1. You Can Send Food: Last October, OFAC issued a general license permitting the export of food to Iran. This means that any U.S. origin food can be exported to Iran without separate license authorization from OFAC. Food is defined broadly in the regulations and includes almost anything that is fit for human consumption and has nutritional value. The definition of food also includes bottled water, supplements, and vitamins. Furthermore, the donation of food to alleviate human suffering is exempted from the President’s sanction authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

2. You Can Send Medicine and Clothing: Again, the exemption in IEEPA referred to above allows for the donation of medicine and clothing to alleviate human suffering. This was also reiterated in a press release from the White House today.

3. You May Be Able to Send Funds to Family Members: OFAC does maintain a general license for sending non-commercial family remittances to Iran at 31 CFR 560.516(a)(2). As such, if you have a family members who have been impacted by this earthquake it may be possible to remit funds to them as non-commercial family remittances under that general license. Be careful though, a non-commercial family or personal remittance does not give one carte blanche to send all the money they want, for whomever they want, to Iran.

4. You Can Not Directly Donate to Relief Organizations Working in Iran…Yet: While you still cannot directly donate to organizations working in Iran on the earthquake relief effort, there have been rumblings out of Lafayette Square that OFAC may issue a general license similar to the one they issued for the relief effort following the earthquake in Bam in 2003. Nothing has officially come out yet, but it may in the next few days. Such a general license would likely allow for financial donations to nongovernmental organizations in Iran working on the disaster relief effort.

Despite what the law says, it may still be difficult to get this aid to Iran. Over the last decade the international shipping and financial industries have become more and more reticent to facilitating transactions between the U.S. and Iran, even when those transactions are authorized. As such, it may be very difficult to find shippers to get food, medicine, and clothing to Iran, or banks to transfer funds to Iran. As such, this may impact the inability to get aid to Iran more than any laws the U.S. has on the books.

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