§8806 Imposition of Sanctions with Respect to Foreign Financial Institutions That Facilitate Financial Transactions on Behalf of Specially Designated Nationals

Summary

The President must block new U.S. correspondent or payable-through accounts, and must close or tightly limit existing ones, for a foreign bank that, on or after the date that is 180 days after January 2, 2013, knowingly helped a major financial transaction for any Iranian person on the Treasury Department’s OFAC “specially designated nationals and blocked persons” list. An Iranian bank that has not been sanctioned for weapons proliferation, support for international terrorism, or human rights abuses is not covered by this rule. The President may not use these penalties against anyone for buying or selling agricultural goods, food, medicine, medical devices, or for providing humanitarian aid to the people of Iran. The rule applies to purchases of Iranian petroleum or petroleum products only when a presidential finding under section 8513a(d)(4)(B) is in effect that non‑Iran supplies are sufficient to allow large reductions in purchases from Iran. It does not apply to certain country-to-Iran trade if the exception in section 8513a(d)(4)(D)(i) applies, the trade is only for non-sanctioned goods or services between that country and Iran, and payments go into an account in that country. The same country-account rules apply to natural gas. The President may waive these penalties for up to 180 days and renew the waiver in additional 180‑day increments if the waiver is vital to U.S. national security and the President sends an unclassified report (with a possible classified annex) to the appropriate congressional committees explaining why.