Aban Offshore penalised by the US for violation of Iranian regulations

The Dollar Business Bureau

A Chennai-based company, Aban Offshore Limited, has agreed to pay $17,500 as a penalty for a settlement with the United States Department of Treasury for its potential civil liability due to an apparent violation of the rules of Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR).

“It is determined that Aban Offshore did not voluntarily self-disclose the apparent violation to it, and that the apparent violation constitutes a non-egregious case,” Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the US Department of Treasury said in a statement.

The apparent violation occurred by the Chennai-based Aban Offshore on June 27, 2008 when the company’s subsidiary in Singapore put an order for supplying oil rigs from a vendor in the US with the purpose to re-export the given supplies from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to a jack-up oil drilling rig situated in the South Pars Gas Fields in the territorial waters of Iran.

The Department of Treasury’s OFAC mainly restricts and regulates transactions with embargoed nations including some specific academic partnerships and exchange of research equipment and materials, with most comprehensive restrictions apply to Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan and Syria. As the regulations are country specific, the regulations with regards to transactions with Iran, mainly comes under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.