On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued General License No. 3 under Executive Order 13662 of March 20, 2014. General License No. 3 authorizes all transactions with DenizBank S.A., which are otherwise prohibited under Directive 1 of Executive Order 13662. DenizBank is a private Turkish bank that is owned by Sberbank, a Russian bank that was sanctioned under Directive 1 on September 12, 2014. As such, U.S. Persons are prohibited from transacting in, providing financing for, or otherwise dealing in “new debt” of longer than 30 days maturity or “new equity” of Sberbank and of any entities in which Sberbank holds a 50% or greater ownership interest, such as DenizBank (please click here to view our previous post on this development). With the issuance of General License No. 3, U.S. Persons are no longer prohibited from engaging in such transactions with DenizBank, notwithstanding its ownership by Sberbank. While OFAC has not provided any reason for its decision, the issuance of this general license could signal a desire by OFAC not to target non-Russian banks that are majority-owned by one of the Russian banks sanctioned under Directive 1 but that operate under local, non-Russian banking regulations.
