Washington company fined for Cuba sanction violations

Posted on Friday, 07.13.12

Washington company fined for Cuba sanction violations
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The agency of the U.S. Treasury Department that enforces sanctions on
Cuba says a company in Vancouver, Wash., has agreed to pay $1.35 million
to settle apparent violations from 2006 to 2009.

The Great Western Malting Co. could have been fined nearly $6 million
for having handled the back-office functions for a foreign affiliate
that sold non-U.S. barley malt to Cuba, according to the Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Some of the transactions, from August 2006 to March 2009, involved
people in Cuba and a Cuban ship, OFAC added, without identifying the
foreign affiliate, the people, or the vessel.

The case was settled for $1.35 million because Great Western has no
prior sanctions violations, it "substantially cooperated" with the
investigators, and the malt would have been eligible for an OFAC license
if shipped from the United States, the agency added.

U.S. laws allow the sale of agricultural goods to Cuba. Those sales
totaled $347 million in 2011 and stood at $186 million for the first
four months of this year. U.S. exports to the island hit a record of
$710 million in 2008.

The OFAC statement described Great Western, which produces malt for
brewers, distillers, and the food industry, as "a large, sophisticated
entity" but added that it "did not have an adequate OFAC compliance
program in place at the time of the violations."

The Cuban government's CubaDebate Web page described the OFAC sanction
on Great Western as a U.S. government "reaffirmation of its policy of
economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba."

ING bank in the Netherlands was fined $619 million and the Panama branch
of the Ericsson telephone company paid $1.75 million this year for
violating the U.S. sanctions on the island, the page noted.

Cuba has suffered $975 billion in damages from the U.S. trade embargo
since it was adopted in 1962, the report added.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/12/2893476/washington-company-fined-for.html