US energy giant ExxonMobil said on July 20 it has launched a legal
challenge to a finding by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) that it violated US sanctions against Russia in
2014 when the company followed authoritative and specific guidance from
the Obama administration that OFAC retroactively changed a year later.
“OFAC seeks to retroactively enforce a new interpretation of an
executive order that is inconsistent with the explicit and unambiguous
guidance from the White House and Treasury issued before the relevant
conduct and still publicly available today,” said ExxonMobil’s filing in
the US District Court.
OFAC’s action is fundamentally unfair and constitutes a denial of due
process under the Constitution and violates the Administrative
Procedure Act because market participants, including ExxonMobil, did not
have notice of the interpretation OFAC now seeks to retroactively
enforce, the filing said.
At the center of the dispute are interactions ExxonMobil had with the Russian oil company, Rosneft and with
Igor Sechin in his capacity as CEO of Rosneft.
According to a press release by Exxon, OFAC alleges that ExxonMobil
violated sanctions when it signed certain documents in May 2014 that
were countersigned on behalf of Rosneft by Sechin acting in his official
capacity as a Rosneft executive. OFAC has acknowledged that White House
and Treasury Department officials repeatedly said sanctions involving
Sechin applied only to his personal affairs and not to companies that he
managed or represented.
Earlier on July 20, the US Treasury Department said it was fining
ExxonMobil $2 million for violating sanctions on Russia in May 2014. The
agreements were signed while Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson was ExxonMobil’s CEO.
The US blacklisted Sechin, an ally of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, as part of its response to Russia’s involvement in Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/exxonmobil-sues-us-treasury-fine-violating-russian-sanctions/