Mr. Watchlist’s DesigNation

Short one to close out the year (yes, I thought I was done) - about yesterday’s enforcement action against BitGo. Despite its small size (about US $98,000), it has lessons for us to learn. So, let’s learn them before we go off and say good riddance to 2020....

The release Monday of OFAC of the Non-SDN Communist Chinese Military Companies List (NS-CCMC) is an apt example of how, in some cases, sanctions programs have to adapt to fill in the gaps left by legislation or Executive Order. Remember the Venezuela General License that exempted transactions in all the Venezuelan government securities issues - except one? Well, this is another case...

And Mr. Watchlist hopes that this is just a good first effort... that Sanctions Clause brings more usable sanctions lists in the coming year, so that firms that don’t have core competencies in company research don’t have to identify as many parties sanctioned because they fall under a descriptive title in an Executive Order, a piece of legislation, or a guidance document.

Mr. Watchlist can dream, can’t he?

Happy New Year, everyone - and good riddance to 2020!

Happy Holidays! It may be a little kitschy, but today we’re going to run through all the US sanctions and sanctions-like lists as if I was a little kid on Christmas morning opening my presents. Sounds like a fun way to do a compendium, with some snark on the side.

Happy New Year to all... good riddance to 2020!

Eric (aka Mr. Watchlist)

This is the 2nd half of our year-in-review Top 10 list (with 165 items actually in it) for financial crime in 2020. Yeah, mostly, but not all, sanctions...

Happy Holidays, everyone - thanks for listening this year. Be safe, wear a mask - and party responsibly.

Mr. Watchlist

It’s time for the end of year review - this is my top 10 list (slightly bloated from some honorable mentions) of the most notable (IMHO, of course) doings in financial crime this year.

As you might imagine, this is the bottom half of my list... stay tuned for the 2nd bit in a day or two.

Ripped from the headlines... yesterday’s headlines, that is.

Turkey’s defense ministry, and 4 of their top officials, were sanctioned yesterday under Section 231 of CAATSA for their purchase of Russian S-400 missiles - that they contracted for in 2017, and received last year. What took so long?

We’ll talk about that, plus the mechanics of what OFAC did (there’s a new list!), and some of the weirdness Mr. Watchlist sees in menu-based sanctions.

Yum! Pass the gravy! (I know Thanksgiving was a few weeks ago, but roll with it, OK?).

The U.S. State Department’s recent Fact Sheet about U.S. investor’s exposure to Chinese securities issues - was it more China-bashing, or was it a shrewd use of the bully pulpit?

I have to tell you - I originally thought it was more jawboning... until I read through the whole thing.

The episode goes through the Fact Sheet, showing you my initial thought process - and whether or not there were actual regulatory risks exposed in each section of the Fact Sheet (and why or why not). And we end up on the very last section, which is where the scales fall from our collective eyes, and we understand the whole thing and why it was issued (and reissued a few days later).

Today, a question: does the OFAC 50 Percent Rule apply to the new Chinese Military Companies sanctions program? While I could cheat and give you a quick yes/no, let’s wend our way through Executive Order, the Ukraine/Russia and Venezuela program so we can figure out how to think these things through, rather than running off to OFAC for guidance.

Why did it occur to me to record this on a Sunday morning? Welcome to my life, folks... especially during COVID.

Stay safe out there - wear a mask.

You have to do a lot of reading to understand sanctions. On a whim, I delved into an Obama-era Proclamation which is now used in all sanctions Executive Orders to bar the entry into the U.S. of people sanctioned by OFAC.

And guess what? It also applies to all those older programs, too - like the Belarus program we discussed in Episode 27.

This episode’s only 10 minutes long... I promise you’ll still be awake when I am done.

Not a whole heck of a lot going on, sanction-wise, so let’s dissect an OFAC program. Today, it’s Belarus - one Executive Order, one active General License.... and a couple of interesting twists, which show you how things have changed since 2006, when the program was first instituted.