OFAC Sanctions Due Diligence

The ability to conduct appropriate due diligence with respect to sanctions risk is the bedrock of a business' OFAC sanctions compliance efforts. Having this ability means that the business is properly screening for and identifying sanctions related risks through its customer, supplier, and vendor relationships, as well as in transactions being conducted by its business lines, counter-parties, and intermediaries. This type of due diligence is about more than just setting up screening software or checking government maintained lists to ensure that risk is being accounted for. It means knowing what questions to ask, knowing who needs to ask those questions and when, and knowing what to do with the responses to those questions. Your sanctions due diligence is only going to be as effective as your ability to gather and assess information. Thus, there is a need to integrate your due diligence efforts into your business operations so that they seamlessly intertwine and interact with your sanctions compliance policies and procedures.

Ferrari & Associates has extensive experience in helping companies with respect to their OFAC sanctions compliance due diligence practices. This experience includes serving as an external component to a business' centralized compliance function, setting up companies' sanctions compliance programs, and training a company's personnel on appropriate due diligence functions. Conducting customer and transactional sanctions compliance due diligence should be neither a static nor a generic process. Rather, it should be conducted in a tailored and flexible way, and should account for local and international considerations including the laws and regulatory frameworks of third-countries in which due diligence might be conducted, as well as with respect to contemporary geo-political developments. The OFAC lawyers at our firm have experience in conducting and advising on sanctions due diligence in particularized contexts, and can help either set up policies and procedures for a company to conduct due diligence the right way, or directly assist a business execute on those due diligence activities.