The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today announced a $7,658,300 settlement with PayPal, Inc. (PayPal) to settle potential civil liability for 486 apparent violations of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 544; the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 560; the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 515; the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 594; and the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. part 538. For several years up to and including 2013, PayPal failed to employ adequate screening technology and procedures to identify the potential involvement of U.S. sanctions targets in transactions that PayPal processed. As a result of this failure, PayPal did not screen in-process transactions in order to reject or block prohibited transactions pursuant to applicable U.S. economic sanctions program requirements. Separately, between October 20, 2009 and April 1, 2013, PayPal processed 136 transactions totaling $7,091.77 to or from a PayPal account registered to an individual on OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. PayPal’s automated interdiction filter did not initially identify the account holder as a potential match to the SDN List, and when it did, PayPal Risk Operations Agents dismissed alerts on six separate occasions after failing to obtain or review documentation corroborating the identity of the SDN.
For more information on this action, please visit the following web notice.
Also, OFAC released additional enforcement information related to Life For Relief and Development.