U.S. Department of Treasury Stops European Websites for Trade with Cuba

An English travel agent offering Europeans trips to Cuba through a Spanish travel agency has had 80 of his .com domain names effectively shutdown by order of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). The sites targeted French, Italian and other European tourists. Some sites were commercial in nature and others were informational.

The domains were stopped by the websites’ U.S.-based registrar, eNom Inc., of Bellevue, Washington. The sites are on the OFAC’s “Special Designated National and Blocked Persons“ (SDN) list used to “administer and enforce economic sanctions programs against countries and groups of individuals, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers.” The Department of Treasury alleges that the travel company assisted Americans to avoid Cuban travel bans and was “a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people.”

Though the sanctions programs are generally targeted at specific countries, U.S. persons are prohibited from dealing with anyone named in the SDN list that OFAC has associated with the sanctions targets, regardless of where the named person may be located. No court order is required for OFAC to name persons to the SDN list and judicial review is not available. The list contains numerous references to persons in Canada.

For additional information, visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/04bar.html

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/faq/answer.shtml

For a copy of the SDN list by country, visit:

http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/ctrylst.txt

Volume VI

U.S. Department of Treasury Stops European Websites for Trade with Cuba