The fine: $107,691.30
The statutory maximum: $1,129,912
The base penalty: $159,542
The firm, in 20111, shipped thousands of units of two sealant products to a distributor in the UAE with reason to know the goods would end up in Iran. The violations were considered non-agregious and were voluntarily self-reported.
Here is OFAC’s math in getting from $159,000 down to $107,000:
OFAC considered the following to be aggravating factors:
(1) HyperBranch acted willfully by exporting products to its foreign distributor with knowledge or reason to know that the exports were ultimately destined for Iran in apparent violation of U.S. law, editing its destination control statement at the request of its distributor, and continuing to conduct business with its distributor after receiving confirmation that the distributor had reexported HyperBranch products to Iran in apparent violation of U.S. law;
(2) HyperBranch’s former CEO and former International Sales Manager knew that the exports at issue were ultimately destined for Iran; and (3) HyperBranch did not have a sanctions compliance program in place at the time of the apparent violations.
OFAC considered the following to be mitigating factors:
(1) harm to U.S. sanctions program objectives was limited because the exports involved medical end-use products that were likely eligible for a specific license;
(2) HyperBranch has no prior OFAC sanctions history, including no penalty notice or Finding of Violation in the five years preceding the date of the earliest transaction giving rise to the apparent violations, making it eligible for “first violation” mitigation of up to 25 percent;
(3) HyperBranch took remedial steps, including the implementation of an OFAC compliance program; and
(4) HyperBranch cooperated with OFAC’s investigation and agreed to toll the statute of limitations for a total of 513 days.
Link:
Filed under: Enforcement Actions, Iranian Sanctions, OFAC Updates
