On July 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a new round of sanctions targeting 22 companies based in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. Among them, 18 companies are based in Hong Kong and have been designated for allegedly facilitating the sale of Iranian oil in violation of U.S. sanctions. The U.S. government alleges these entities helped transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenue to support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF)\u2014a designated terrorist organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant, the sanctions are intended to disrupt Iran\u2019s financial infrastructure and prevent the flow of funds to activities that threaten U.S. national security and regional stability. OFAC\u2019s designation adds these companies to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, meaning that U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them, and their assets within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 18 Hong Kong-based companies now included on the SDN List are as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These new sanctions have direct implications for international trade and logistics operations. U.S. businesses must immediately screen all current and prospective counterparties against the updated SDN list to ensure they are not engaging with any of the named entities\u2014either directly or indirectly. This includes transactions involving freight forwarding, customs brokerage, financing, and any type of supply chain service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Failure to comply with OFAC regulations\u2014even unintentionally\u2014can result in severe civil or criminal penalties. Importers should closely examine their vendor networks, freight booking channels, and payment flows to ensure none are linked to the newly designated entities or their affiliates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As new regulations continue to evolve, navigating these changes requires experienced legal counsel. At Liang + Mooney, PLLC, our seasoned tariff lawyers can answer your questions and concerns with sophisticated legal solutions.\u00a0 If you seek strategic counsel and insight into how these changes could affect your operations, we invite you to Cont\u00e1ctenos<\/a> to schedule a consultation. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On July 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a new round of sanctions targeting 22 companies based in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey. Among them, 18 companies are based in Hong Kong and have been designated for allegedly facilitating the sale of Iranian oil in violation of U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":8888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8889,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions\/8889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customscourt.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
What this means for companies doing business in Asia and the Middle East<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Considerations for compliance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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