July 26, 2014: EU, HMT expand Iraq licensing

Council Regulation (EU) 791/2014 amends the existing licensing:

The following restrictions in the Regulation have been amended. These amendments
may include a change to the number of the article containing the restriction:

Paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 4 dealing with the freezing of funds and economic
resources respectively have been merged;
Article 4a has been replaced, so that the new Article 4a is consistent with the
amended Article 4;
Article 5 has been replaced. The amended Article 5 now allows for expanded
licensing grounds; and
The list of competent authorities has been updated.

This is the amended Article 4a:

Article 4a

The prohibition set out in Article 4(3) shall not give rise to liability of any kind on the part of the natural or legal
persons or entities concerned, if they did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that their actions
would infringe this prohibition.’;

and the amended Article 5:

Article 5

1. Article 4 shall not prevent the crediting of frozen accounts by financial or credit institutions that receive funds
transferred by third parties to the account of the listed person, entity or body, provided that any additions to such
accounts are also frozen. The financial or credit institution shall inform the competent authorities about such trans
actions without delay.

2. By way of derogation from Article 4(3), the competent authorities, as indicated on the websites listed in
Annex V, may authorise the making available of certain funds or economic resources, under such conditions as they
deem appropriate, after having determined that the funds or economic resources concerned are:

(a) necessary to satisfy the basic needs of natural or legal persons, entities or bodies listed in Annex IV, and depen
dent family members of such natural persons, including payments for foodstuffs, rent or mortgage, medicines
and medical treatment, taxes, insurance premiums, and public utility charges;
(b) intended exclusively for payment of reasonable professional fees and reimbursement of incurred expenses asso
ciated with the provision of legal services;
(c) intended exclusively for payment of fees or service charges for routine holding or maintenance of frozen funds
or economic resources; or
(d) necessary for extraordinary expenses, provided that the relevant competent authority has notified the grounds
on which it considers that a specific authorisation should be granted to the competent authorities of the other
Member States and to the Commission at least two weeks prior to authorisation.

3. The Member States concerned shall inform the other Member States and the Commission of any authorisation
granted under this Article.’;