This page covers two different things that share a name: a broad set of measures that ended in 2017, and the targeted measures that exist now. The first is why Sudan appears so often in this site’s penalty record. The second is what a screening programme faces today. The page describes the legal structure and the enforcement record only, and says nothing about conditions in Sudan.
The former embargo
OFAC’s programme page describes the original measures as E.O. 13067 of 3 November 1997, a blocking order, and E.O. 13412 of 13 October 2006. They were implemented through the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR Part 538. Sudan sat alongside Iran, Cuba and Syria in the enforcement releases on this site as a jurisdiction subject to US sanctions.
On 13 January 2017 E.O. 13761 provided for revoking those measures, and it was amended by E.O. 13804 on 11 July 2017. Sections 1 and 2 of E.O. 13067 and all of E.O. 13412 were revoked effective 12 October 2017, and OFAC removed Part 538 from the Code of Federal Regulations on 29 June 2018. Sudan’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism was rescinded on 14 December 2020.
Why old conduct is still penalised
The revocation did not wipe out earlier violations. OFAC’s 2023 Wells Fargo release says the revocation “does not affect past, present, or future OFAC enforcement investigations or actions related to any apparent violations of the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations arising from activities that occurred prior to” 12 October 2017. The 2019 UniCredit release carries an equivalent note, citing section 1 of E.O. 13761. Both settlements concern conduct that ended years before they were announced.
The programme in the penalty record
Sudan is rarely the headline in these cases, and in some it is most of the money.
- BNP Paribas, 2014. The release breaks the conduct down by programme. Sudan accounts for 2,663 of the transfers, about $8.37 billion, and 87 per cent of the base penalty. It is remembered as an Iran case and is principally a Sudan case.
- Commerzbank, 2015. 375 Sudan transactions worth about $78.3 million, with a base penalty of $209.5 million.
- The other bank settlements of 2009 to 2015. Crédit Agricole (97 per cent of its base penalty), Standard Chartered’s 2012 settlement (52 per cent), Barclays (94 per cent of the value counted), HSBC, Lloyds, ING and Credit Suisse all include Sudan. See the data note.
- Fokker Services, 2014. US-origin aircraft spare parts supplied to Iranian and Sudanese customers.
- UniCredit, 2019, Wells Fargo, 2023 and Danfoss, 2022. Sudan is one of several programmes in each: a bank’s non-transparent dollar payments, a trade-finance platform, and a UAE subsidiary collecting payments through a US bank’s branch.
- Bittrex and ShapeShift. Customers apparently in Sudan appear among the users whose location data was collected and not used.
The pattern across them is the dollar. Almost none of the conduct involved goods or people in the United States. It involved a payment message, an account or a clearing step that put a US bank in the chain, which is the route described on how US sanctions reach companies outside the United States.
Current measures
OFAC lists the programme now administered under 31 CFR Part 546 as the Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations, formerly the Darfur Sanctions Regulations. It rests on E.O. 14098 of 4 May 2023 and E.O. 13400 of 26 April 2006 and addresses the situation following the October 2021 military takeover and the fighting that began in April 2023. It is a designation-based programme, not an embargo, so the question for a screening team is whether a counterparty is listed or owned by someone who is, not whether the country is involved at all.
That change is worth stating plainly for anyone reading older cases: a payment that violated the embargo in 2010 would not necessarily be prohibited by a transaction-level rule today. It would still fall under the designation lists and the fifty percent rule.