OFAC issues new standards for submissions and supporting documents

On July 5, 2024 the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) released “OFAC Guidance: Production Submission Standards” (the Guidance). The Guidance establishes technical and general best practices standards for submitting material to OFAC, primarily responses to administrative subpoenas, requests for information, and voluntary self-disclosures (VSDs), and especially for submissions with a large amount of documentation (e.g. more than 100 pages).

The Guidance is organized into four sections. The first two sections address organization of materials and electronic productions, and the remaining sections address electronic submission processes.

Highlights from each section are summarized below.

Section I – Guidance for Organizing Document Productions

The Guidance describes best practices for organizing, labelling, and referencing materials in submissions. Among the best practices:

• Provide a single document or email cover note containing the password for all files, and only use one unique password for all files;

• Documents should be Bates numbered and continue sequentially from any prior filings;

• The narrative should refer to the Bates numbers for each exhibit;

• Include a separate exhibit list;

• The narrative should explain the relationship between each exhibit and the information (e.g. “Exhibit 1 includes the commercial invoice, identifying Mr. X as the customer”);

• The legal basis for withholding information should be clearly noted, and submitting parties may be asked to provide a list identifying each withholding;

• English translations should be provided via certified translations;

• Submit non-English language documents in their original form and language;

• Report transaction information in a separate Excel file as a list;1 and

• Underlying documents for each transaction generally should be included as exhibits and organized by transaction.

Section II – General Conventions for Electronic Productions

The Guidance describes best practices for submitting electronic materials. Among the best practices:

• Responsive documents should be produced in their native software format and include all metadata;

• The Guidance outlines requirements for specific types of files:

  • Text and scanned documents should be produced as PDFs (with specific requirements for the PDF files, such as running Optical Character Recognition on all files)

  • Transactional data should be produced in Excel-compatible files

  • Emails should be produced as PST or PDF

  • Electronic messaging records (e.g. MS Teams) should be submitted as PDF or as requested by the OFAC officer handling the investigation

  • Images should be submitted as CCITT 6.0 (Group 4 Compression) JPG, PDF, or PNG files or as requested by the OFAC officer handling the investigation; include a Bates number with each image; the number of files per folder is limited to 1,000

  • Audio recordings should be submitted as MP3; video submitted as MP4

  • Any other file types – ask the OFAC officer handling your case

• All attachments relating to a single submission should have the same root name (e.g. “Disclosure_Exhibit 1” and “Disclosure_Password List”);

• All documents should be labeled with the OFAC-provided case number (if assigned), submission date, and Bates numbers;

• All document family groups (e.g. email attachments) should be submitted together and children files should follow parent files sequentially in the Bates numbering; and

• Submissions with large files or a large number of documents should be compressed and encrypted when appropriate (only encrypt and compress using Zip format compatible with WinZip); do not submit encrypted data with third-party decryption application.

Section III – Submitting Electronic Productions (under 150 megabytes)

• Submissions under 150MB (including cover email and attachments) may be emailed directly to the OFAC officer handling the case, or to OFACDisclosures@treasury.gov for initial disclosures; and

• Productions via email are limited to three emails of 50MB each – if going this route, the subject line should indicate the part of the total submission (e.g. “Part 1/3”).

Section IV – Submitting Electronic Productions (over 150 megabytes)

• Submissions over 150MB should be sent to OFAC via the “OFAC Secure File Transfer Portal” (OSFTP);2

• You must request access to the OSFTP to upload documents;

  • For matters initiated by subpoena, the request for access may be made to the OFAC officer handling your case and identified in the subpoena;

  • For VSDs, include a request for access as part of the initial VSD;

• Access to the OSFTP requires an ID.me account;3 and

• Once you have access to the Portal you can upload your files, which will be automatically shared with the OFAC officer handling your case.

  • After uploading the materials, email the OFAC officer handling the case to inform them that your documents have been submitted.

Next Steps

As part of an effort to cooperate with OFAC and thus maximize potential penalty mitigation, companies should apply the Guidance in submitting information whether as part of a VSD or in response to another type of request from OFAC (e.g. subpoena). For assistance in investigating potential economic sanctions violations, submitting VSDs, responding to subpoenas or requests for information, or if you have questions about trade compliance generally, please reach out to any of the listed Hogan Lovells contacts.