Two Firms To Pay $9.7 Million To US For Iran Sanctions Violations

The US government reached settlements with 3M Company and Emigrant Bank for their violations of Iran sanctions laws, the Treasury Department announced Thursday.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a $9.6 million settlement with 3M Company for 54 apparent violations of OFAC sanctions on Iran. The case is related to its subsidiary’s sale of reflective license plate sheeting to an Iranian entity controlled by Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces.

“Between September 2016 and September 2018, 3M East AG sold 43 orders of this product to a reseller with knowledge that it was destined for a customer in Iran,” the statement said and added, “OFAC determined that these apparent violations were egregious and were voluntarily self-disclosed.”

In a much smaller settlement, Emigrant Bank agreed to remit more than $31,000 to settle its potential civil liability for maintaining a Certificate of Deposit Account on behalf of two individuals located in Iran, for 26 years.

The low amount of this settlement, the Treasury said, reflected “OFAC’s determination that Emigrant’s conduct was non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed.”

In one of the largest such settlements, Italy’s top bank UniCredit SpA and two subsidiaries agreed in April 2019 to pay $1.3 billion to US authorities to settle probes of violations of US sanctions on Iran and other countries.

In 2017, ZTE Corporation agreed to enter a guilty plea and pay a $892 million penalty to the US for conspiring to illegally ship US-origin items to Iran.