By: Daniela Melendez, Associate at The Volkov Law Group, and Alex Cotoia, Regulatory Compliance Manager. Daniela can be reached at [email protected] and Alex can be reached out at [email protected]. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) recently settled with American Life Insurance Company (“ALICO”), a Delaware-based subsidiary of MetLife, Inc., for $178,421, addressing apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (“ITSR”)....

Sam Finkelstein, an Associate at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins us for another posting about 3M’s recent settlement for violations of the Iran Sanctions Program. Sam can be reached at [email protected]. The past few weeks have not been kind to 3M. The company recently settled with the SEC for $6.5 million to resolve alleged FCPA violations related to its Chinese subsidiary’s dealings with Chinese state-owned...

Construction Specialties, Inc. (“CSI”), a U.S. company specializing in the sale of building materials, agreed to pay $660,594 to settle its liability for three violations of OFAC’s sanctions on Iran. CSI’s illegal conduct occurred through its United Arab Emirates (UAE) subsidiary, Construction Specialties Middle East (“CSME”), which imported building materials from the United States to the UAE and then knowingly reexported them to Iran. In...

The long political and prosecution standoff between the U.S. Government/Department of Justice and Huawei/China ended abruptly last week when Wanzhou Meng, CFO of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. appeared in federal district court in Brooklyn and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) and admitted to misleading global financial institutions. Meng was immediately released and returned to China. The resolution of Wanzhou Meng’s case resolved a...

The First Bank of Romania and JC Flowers agreed to pay OFAC $862,318 to settle violations of Iran and Syria Sanctions Programs.  First Bank is owned by its U.S. parent, JC Flowers & Company. In 2018, JC Flowers acquired a majority stake in First Bank, subjecting Frist Bank to OFAC sanctions. In early 2019, First Bank’s regulator, the National Bank of Romania flagged a U.S....