OFAC

The US Treasury office that runs American sanctions lists.

If a person, company, or country is under US sanctions, this office is the one that put them there and keeps the list.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control, administering US economic and trade sanctions programs. It is part of the US Department of the Treasury.

OFAC runs several kinds of sanctions:

• Country-based programs, which restrict dealings with certain countries or regions.
• List-based programs, which block named people, companies, and vessels wherever they are.
• Sectoral measures, which restrict specific activities in certain parts of an economy.

The agency publishes its lists and updates them often:

1. It adds or removes names as policy and events change.
2. It publishes the updates in its sanctions lists.
3. US persons and many businesses screen against the lists and block dealings with listed parties.

OFAC also applies an ownership rule: an entity that is owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, by one or more blocked persons is itself treated as blocked, even if it does not appear on a list.

OFAC sits next to terms that are easy to mix up:

• Sanctions screening is the process of checking names against OFAC and other lists.
• Watchlist is any list a business checks, and OFAC's lists are among the most widely used.
• Anti-money laundering (AML) is the broader set of controls, and sanctions compliance is one part of it.