Over the past month, substantial changes were made to several sanctions programs affecting Burma, Cuba, and Iran by President Obama and the Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

President Obama issued an executive order entitled “Termination of Emergency with Respect to the Actions and Policies of the Government of Burma” removing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13047 and revoking five other executive orders. As a result, all individuals and entities on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List due to the Burmese Sanctions Regulations (BSR) were removed, all property and interests blocked by the BSR were unblocked, the ban on importing Burmese-origin jadeite and rubies was revoked, and all OFAC-administered restrictions under the Burmese sanctions programs are no longer in effect. OFAC will remove the BSR from the Code of Federal Regulations. Compliance with State Department’s Responsible Investment Reporting Requirements is now voluntary. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has also issued an administrative exception suspending a prohibition on U.S. financial institutions maintaining correspondent accounts for Burmese banks put in place in 2003 to prevent money laundering. The exception is based on Burma’s continued anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, and anti-narcotics efforts.

Additionally, OFAC amended the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) as part of the effort begun in December 2014 to ease the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The amendment includes changes to the OFAC general license to authorize transactions incident to exports and re-exports authorized by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and will remove references to “100% U.S.-origin items” for clarity. Also, BIS will generally authorize exports of certain consumer goods sold online or through other means to eligible individuals in Cuba. The amendments will also allow importation of items into the U.S. or a third country if the items were previously exported or re-exported under BIS or OFAC authorization. An additional expanded general license will authorize persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to enter into contingent contracts and transactions ordinarily incident to negotiating such contracts for transactions currently prohibited, if they are made contingent on prior OFAC and other authorization. The amendments have also updated the rules on transactions related to: medical research; grant, scholarship, and award access; Cuban infrastructure; remittances; transit of certain cargo; and accompanied baggage.

Finally, OFAC updated certain Frequently Asked Questions on Iran sanctions. These explanatory answers do not have force of law. Under the new guidance, OFAC stated it was not necessarily sanctionable for non-U.S. persons to engage in transactions with an entity that itself is not on the SDN List but is controlled in whole or in part by an Iran-related person on the SDN List. The guidance also provides that non-U.S. financial institutions do not need to repeat due diligence conducted by its customers on Iranian customers, unless the prior process is believed to be insufficient.