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OFAC settlement with Berkshire Hathaway

OFAC has announced a $4,144,651 settlement with Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. (“Berkshire”), a multinational conglomerate holding company based in Omaha Nebraska, and its foreign subsidiary, Iscar Kesici Takim Ticareti ve Imalati Limited Sirket (“Iscar Turkey”).

Berkshire, on behalf of itself and its subsidiary located in Turkey, has agreed to settle its potential civil liability for 144 apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 560 (ITSR). Specifically, between December 2012 and January 2016, Iscar Turkey exported 144 shipments of cutting tools and related inserts, with a total value of $383,443, to two third-party Turkish distributors knowing that such goods would be shipped to a distributor in Iran for resale to Iranian end-users, including several entities later identified as meeting the definition of the Government of Iran, which would have been prohibited if engaged in by a U.S. person. These transactions appear to have violated § 560.215 of the ITSR. OFAC determined that Berkshire voluntarily self-disclosed the apparent violations on behalf of Iscar Turkey, and that the apparent violations constitute an egregious case.

According to OFAC's Enforcement Release, Iscar Turkey's action violated Berkshire's compliance policies, and Iscar Turkey took steps to obfuscate its dealings with Iran, including concealing these activities from Berkshire. The Apparent Violations occurred under the direction of certain Iscar Turkey senior managers despite Berkshire and other Berkshire subsidiaries’ repeated communications and policies sent to Iscar Turkey regarding U.S. sanctions against Iran and the application of the ITSR to Iscar Turkey’s operations. The General Manager and his employees took certain steps to conceal Iscar Turkey’s activities and plans with Iran such as: (1) utilizing private email addresses that bypassed the controls and visibility of the corporate email system to communicate about orders from Iranian customers; (2) utilizing false names in internal records of Iscar Turkey to conceal transactions; (3) providing false assurances in response to compliance inquiries; (4) providing fraudulent evidence of a compliance training session; and, (5) when the internal investigation was initiated, lying to interviewers and counseling others to lie.

Berkshire voluntarily self-disclosed the apparent violations to OFAC in May 2016 after receiving an anonymous tip in January 2016. Berkshire followed with multiple mitigating actions in cooperation with the OFAC investigation. Those mitigating actions helped reduce the base civil monetary penalty for the violations from $18.4 million to the settlement amount of $4,144,651.

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