Sanctions 2025

USA LAW AND PRACTICE Contributed by: Seward & Kissel LLP

included a 2023 action brought against an associ- ate charged with conspiring to make prohibited payments to maintain four real estate properties and to attempt to sell two of those properties; and a criminal resolution with a New York attorney charged with involvement in facilitating payments on Vekselberg properties. • Indictments of persons connected to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as part of the US government’s broader efforts to use US sanc - tions on Iran and related statutory authority to combat the illicit trafficking of Iranian oil, including the related seizure and civil forfeiture of more than 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil announced by DOJ in February 2024. Looking ahead, despite a deregulatory initiative in the digital assets sector, there is also continued recent enforcement activity on the part of the DOJ to pros- ecute willful sanctions violations, among other crimi- nal conduct, against bad actors in the cryptocurrency industry. Separately and in a notable example of leniency, DOJ also decided in June 2025 not to prosecute private equity firm White Deer Management LLC, that had acquired portfolio company Unicat Catalyst Technolo - gies LLC (“Unicat”), based on White Deer’s prompt voluntary self-disclosure of Unicat’s violations to the DOJ’s National Security Division, as detailed above. See 1.2 (Key Trends). 2.2.5 Mitigation OFAC’s Sanctions Enforcement Guidelines provide for numerous factors that OFAC can consider when determining the appropriate administrative response to apparent violations of US sanctions by a person who is obliged to comply with such sanctions (a “Sub- ject Person”), including whether any mitigation should be applied to avoid or lessen the base civil penalty amount, and whether a violation should be deemed “egregious” or “non-egregious”. This includes, in appropriate circumstances, a procedure to provide voluntary self-disclosure to OFAC. The enforcement factors in play include: • whether the violation was wilful or reckless;

• the Subject Person’s awareness of the conduct giving rise to the apparent violation; • the actual or potential harm to the sanctions pro- gramme objectives caused by the apparent viola- tion; • whether the violation was voluntarily disclosed; • the particular circumstances and characteristics of the Subject Person; • the existence, nature and adequacy of a Subject’s Person risk-based OFAC compliance programme at the time of the apparent violation; • any corrective action taken by the Subject Person in response to the apparent violation; • the nature and extent of the Subject Person’s co- operation with OFAC; • the timing of the apparent violation in relation to the adoption of the applicable prohibition; • the existence of other enforcement actions against the Subject Person; • the impact any administrative action may have on promoting future compliance by the Subject Per- son and similar persons; and • such other factors that OFAC deems relevant on a OFAC can impose civil penalties for sanctions viola- tions even where the person had no knowledge or reason to know they were engaging in a sanctions vio - lation. In practice, OFAC considers the facts and cir - cumstances surrounding an apparent violation when determining the appropriate enforcement response, taking into account various aggravating or mitigating factors. Regarding criminal violations of US sanctions, the US government is typically required to establish a willful or knowing violation. case-by-case basis. 2.2.6 “Strict Liability” OFAC issues both “general” and “specific” licences that permit persons to engage in otherwise prohib- ited transactions. General licences provide blanket authorisation for certain enumerated transactions for a class of persons without the need for a licence application. A specific licence, on the other hand, is a written document issued by OFAC in response to a 2.3 Licensing 2.3.1 Derogation

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