On Tuesday, March 24th the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on its website that it had removed 45 companies and individuals from the Specially Designated Nationals List. OFAC officially announced the delisting was performed in an attempt to eliminate out-of-date entities related to Cuba sanctions that had, over the years, been placed on the SDN list. Indeed, according to Reuters, the term out-of-date seems to be just a bit of an understatement. Included on the list was Amado Padron, a Cuban who was executed by firing squad in Cuba 26 years ago in 1989! In fact the entities delisted included four people who had previously died, along with a list that included sunken and decommissioned ships as well as companies that have long been dissolved. Nice to know that the current administration in Washington has finally gotten around to “delisting” among others, an entity that died in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush Administration around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall! And to think that we all thought the waiting period for an export license application to be reviewed and processed is too long!
Source: Reuters