Yesterday, I wrote a blog posting on the impact of U.S. economic sanctions administered by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) on the earthquake relief effort in Iran. In that blog posting, I mentioned a few things that could be done under current general licenses and exemptions, and what could not be done due to prohibitions contained in the regulations. Today, OFAC issued their own guidance concerning what is currently allowed in relation to the provision of assistance to the earthquake relief effort in Iran.

In their guidance, OFAC essentially pointed out the same things that were in yesterday’s blog posting; namely, that there is an exemption for the donation of food and medicine to Iran, and U.S. persons can send funds to Iran as a non-commercial personal remittance. What differed from the posting and OFAC’s actual guidance on the matter, is that I had heard and reported there may be a general license, similar to the one issued after 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, issued to allow for financial donations to non-governmental organizations assisting in the earthquake relief effort. Surprisingly, or not, the rumors I heard seem to have been wrong and no such general license was issued. Rather, OFAC mentioned that those seeking to send donations to Iran for earthquake relief efforts would have to apply for a specific license to do so.

This may not be last word on any future general license such as the one referenced above. According to a report in Al-Monitor, an official from the National Security Council has indicated that the administration is still considering options to provide assistance to the Iranian earthquake relief effort. It should also be noted, that I am quoted in that article as saying that there is no practical way to send remittances to Iran or no reliable to send goods. Just to clarify, this is to mean that it not easy to carry out these transactions. For personal remittances, which must be routed through third country banks, they typically have to involve the use of saraafis, informal money exchanges, who in certain circumstances operate outside of traditional banking methods. Moreover, while shipping to Iran is not impossible, it is becoming more difficult. In fact, even at the firm there has been some difficulty in shipping mere documents to clients in Iran due to the misunderstanding and misapplication of sanctions by third party shippers.

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.