Burma Sanctions Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Office of Foreign Assets Control</SUBAGY> <CFR>31 CFR Part 525</CFR> <SUBJECT>Burma Sanctions Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is adopting a final rule amending the Burma Sanctions Regulations to further implement a February 10, 2021, Burma-related Executive Order. This rule replaces the Burma Sanctions Regulations that were published in abbreviated form on June 1, 2021 with a more comprehensive set of regulations that includes additional interpretive guidance and definitions, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public. In addition, this amendment incorporates one directive regarding sectoral sanctions issued pursuant to the Burma-related Executive Order of February 10, 2021. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 13, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> OFAC: Assistant Director for Licensing, 202-622-2480; Assistant Director for Regulatory Affairs, 202-622-4855; or Assistant Director for Compliance, 202-622-2490. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Availability</HD> This document and additional information concerning OFAC are available on OFAC's website: <E T="03">https://ofac.treasury.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On June 1, 2021, OFAC issued the Burma Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 525 (86 FR 29197, June 1, 2021) (the “Regulations”), to implement Executive Order (E.O.) 14014 of February 10, 2021, “Blocking Property With Respect to the Situation in Burma” (86 FR 9429, February 12, 2021), pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 14014. The Regulations were initially issued in abbreviated form for the purpose of providing immediate guidance to the public. OFAC is revising the Regulations to further implement E.O. 14014. OFAC is amending and reissuing the Regulations as a more comprehensive set of regulations that includes additional interpretive guidance and definitions, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions that will provide further guidance to the public. Due to the number of regulatory sections being updated or added, OFAC is reissuing the Regulations in their entirety. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E.O. 14014</HD> On February 10, 2021, the President, invoking the authority of, <E T="03">inter alia,</E> the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (IEEPA), issued E.O. 14014. In E.O. 14014, the President found that the situation in and in relation to Burma, and in particular the February 1, 2021 coup, in which the military overthrew the democratically elected civilian government of Burma and unjustly arrested and detained government leaders, politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and religious leaders, thereby rejecting the will of the people of Burma as expressed in elections held in November 2020 and undermining the country's democratic transition and rule of law, constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat. Section 1 of E.O. 14014 blocks, with certain exceptions, all property and interests in property that are in the United States, that come within the United States, or that are or come within the possession or control of any U.S. person of: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State: (i) to operate in the defense sector of the Burmese economy or any other sector of the Burmese economy as may be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State; (ii) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in, any of the following: (A) actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Burma; (B) actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, or stability of Burma; (C) actions or policies that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or assembly by people in Burma, or that limit access to print, online, or broadcast media in Burma; or (D) the arbitrary detention or torture of any person in Burma or other serious human rights abuse in Burma; (iii) to be or have been a leader or official of: (A) the military or security forces of Burma, or any successor entity to any of the foregoing; (B) the Government of Burma on or after February 2, 2021; (C) an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in any activity described in section (1)(a)(ii) of E.O. 14014 relating to the leader's or official's tenure; or (D) an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014 as a result of activities related to the leader's or official's tenure; (iv) to be a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of Burma; (v) to be a spouse or adult child of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014; (vi) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014; or (vii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the military or security forces of Burma or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014. The blocked property and interests in property of the persons described above may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in. Section 2 of E.O. 14014 provides that the prohibition on any transaction or dealing in blocked property or interests in property includes the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014, and the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. Section 4 of E.O. 14014 prohibits any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in E.O. 14014, as well as any conspiracy formed to violate such prohibitions. In section 5 of E.O. 14014, the President determined that the making of donations of the types of articles specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)), by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 14014 would seriously impair the President's ability to deal with the national emergency declared in E.O. 14014. The President therefore prohibited the donation of such items except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, rulings, instructions, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to E.O. 14014. Section 8 of E.O. 14014 authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of E.O. 14014. Section 8 of E.O. 14014 also provides that the Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions within the Department of the Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Directive 1 Under E.O. 14014</HD> On October 31, 2023, OFAC issued “Directive 1 Under E.O. 14014” (89 FR 27668, April 18, 2024) (“Directive 1”) following the Director of OFAC's determination, in consultation with the Department of State, that sections 1(a)(iv), 1(b), and 8 of E.O. 14014 apply to Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) as a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of Burma. Directive 1 prohibits the provision, exportation, or reexportation, directly or indirectly, of financial services to or for the benefit of MOGE or its property or interests in property. Directive 1 also prohibits: (a) any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions contained in Directive 1; and (b) any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions in Directive 1. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Current Regulatory Action</HD> In furtherance of the purposes of E.O. 14014, OFAC is revising 31 CFR part 525. The Regulations implement targeted sanctions that are directed at persons determined to meet the criteria set forth in §§ 525.201 and 525.202 of the Regulations, as well as sanctions that may be set forth in any further Executive orders issued pursuant to the national emergency declared in E.O. 14014. The sanctions in E.O. 14014 do not generally prohibit trade or the provision of banking or other financial services to the country of Burma. Instead, the sanctions in E.O. 14014 apply where the transaction or service in question involves property or interests in property that are blocked pursuant to these sanctions or are otherwise specifically prohibited. Subpart A of the Regulations clarifies the relation of this part to other laws and regulations, refers to subpart C of part 501 for recordkeeping and reporting requirements, refers to subpart E of part 501 for applicable provisions relating to administrative procedures, contains a delegation of certain authorities of the Secretary of the Treasury, and sets forth a Paperwork Reduction Act notice. Subpart B of the Regulations implements the proh ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 98k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━