June 2025
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The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) appears to have a renewed interest in a sanctions tool first used in 2001: blocking individuals and entities pending investigation. Used in two recent sets of listings, the tool offers the agility and speed necessary to quickly and efficiently dismantle financing networks and sanctions evasion tactics. Its strategic application warrants closer attention from financial institutions, who must be responsive to their compliance obligations. Non-government organizations (NGOs) may be aware of opportunities where they can advocate for OFAC to take greater advantage of this option, particularly in cases related to sanctions evasion and conflict financing. In parallel, NGOs can also play a vital role by sharing information that supports implementation and, where applicable, reinforces the credibility of these provisional designations.
On June 6, 2024, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) quietly added seven companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. The UAE companies were listed—without an accompanying press release—under the Sudan program, due to “their potential involvement in activities violating US sanctions on Sudan.” This unusual move invoked a little-known sanctions tool from 2001, blocked pending investigation (BPI) listings. It represented the second such set of listings in a year. In September 2023, OFAC listed four companies pursuant to the Russian Harmful Foreign Activities program that were part of a corporate network in the Central African Republic (CAR) supporting the Wagner Group. Both of these sets of listings targeted fast-paced financing networks in dynamic environments, suggesting that the BPI listing can be a valuable tool to combat global illicit financing in jurisdictions where it’s challenging and time consuming to conduct necessary investigations and validate information.
Corrupt and kleptocratic networks can be wide-ranging, fast-moving, and well-resourced, and all of this can hamper sanctions’ effectiveness. Taking a network approach and sanctioning all elements of the network—including corporate networks, enablers, and financiers—can have a powerful impact, but it takes resources and time. By using BPI listings, for which investigations and formal evidentiary packages can be finalized after blocking, OFAC could theoretically list entities faster, with fewer up-front resources, and without incurring administrative delays, meaning that listed entities could be shut out of the financial sector more efficiently.
The BPI listing was designed for use in emergent cases, and under the right circumstances, sanctioning authorities should consider the expedient use of BPI listings. As OFAC renews its thinking on the use of BPI listings to target conflict financing and sanctions evasion networks, the private sector, NGOs, and civil society also have clear roles to play to ensuring this authority is properly implemented.
Financial institutions and other private sector actors
- Ensure BPI listings are appropriately integrated into compliance programs and training, if not already. Compliance officers should familiarize themselves with the authority and format of BPI listings, and financial institutions should ensure that they are properly accounted for in screening processes.
NGOs and civil society
- Leverage BPI listings as an opportunity to publish about blocked individuals and entities and related activities. Taking a BPI listing as a signal from OFAC, NGOs and civil society can tailor their public work to priorities that work in parallel to OFAC’s investigation.
- Provide evidence to support sanctioning authorities’ investigations. NGOs often have more detailed and specific evidence than is included in a publication, including underlying documentary evidence, identifying details, and testimonies, while civil society, working on the front lines, may also be able to provide a unique perspective.
- Advocate for the adoption of a BPI-style blocking tool by other sanctioning authorities. As the international community looks to collaboratively tackle illicit networks, NGOs and civil society should advocate for the adoption of a BPI-style tool by like-minded sanctioning authorities to more collectively tackle global illicit networks.