Office of Foreign Assets Control
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
Office of Foreign Assets Control (or
OFAC) is an office of the
United States Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces
economic and trade sanctions based on
U.S. foreign policy and
national security goals against targeted foreign
countries,
terrorists, international
narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the unapproved proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under
presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under U.S.
jurisdiction. Many of the sanctions are based on
United Nations and other international
mandates which are multilateral in scope, and involve close cooperation with allied governments; others, such as the sanctions against Cuba based on the
Helms-Burton Act, have been condemned by such multilateral institutions as the
European Union.
The office's controversial
Specially Designated Nationals list provides financial and other institutions with the names of those individuals and organizations which are currently prohibited from engaging in financial transactions. Like the longer and more famous
no-fly list, it has resulted in several reported
false positives.
[1] [edit] References
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032602088_pf.html Washington Post on the Specially Designated Nationals list. Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer - Tuesday, March 27, 2007; D01