Businesses Trying to Comply With JCPOA and US Sanctions Facing Compliance Issues, Report Says

European Union entities are struggling with compliance ambiguity resulting from the U.S.’s reimposition of Iranian sanctions that conflict with EU laws, according to a June 21 report by the Financial Markets Law Committee, a United Kingdom-based legal association.

The report details the confusion associated with people, companies and governments trying to comply with both the U.S. sanctions and the EU’s Blocking Regulation, which bans European Union parties from “complying with specified extra-territorial sanctions.” Those regulations were expanded in 2018 to “cover the reimposed U.S. measures on Iran,” the report said, and mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions on the U.K.’s “trading interests.” The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU on Oct. 31, but the country's sanctions policy would remain the same after even a no-deal Brexit, U.K. officials have said (see 1906120062).

Both the Blocking Regulations and the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 created “issues of legal uncertainty” that “have had an impact on U.K. business and the financial markets,” the report said. People and entities most affected include those who “engage in substantial business activity” with the U.S. or “rely on U.S. lenders to finance their business activities.” There are “many issues of uncertainty … as to how such persons can properly navigate (if possible) two conflicting legal regimes which apply to them and their business,” the report said.

The two regimes are “affecting the internal compliance systems of” EU companies, governments and lenders, the report said, specifically those “who are required to comply with two largely conflicting sets of obligations imposed by the U.S. on the one hand and the E.U. on the other.” The report also pointed to the impact on the U.S., saying “senior employees, officers and directors” for EU subsidiaries of U.S. businesses are “heavily concerned at their risk of personal liability … for implanting the orders and requirements of their employer in accordance with U.S. primary sanctions.”

The report calls for “clarity on these issues” from the U.K. and the EU, which “would help ensure greater legal certainty in the financial markets and give market participants clarity as to how their obligations apply in practice."