On October 26, 2020, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced the amendment of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR), 31 CFR Part 515, to prevent the Cuban government from accessing funds related to remittances. Specifically, OFAC is amending three general licenses in Subpart E of the CACR in order to prohibit remittance-related transactions between the Cuban military and entities on Cuba’s Restricted List (CRL). The CRL is a list, kept by the Department of State, of entities and subentities that are under the control of or acting on behalf of the Cuban military, that disproportionately benefits the government financially at the expense of the Cuban people or private enterprise in Cuba.
As a result of these restrictions, US persons will no longer be authorized to process remittances through FINCIMEX or other entities on the CRL. OFAC also clarified that remittance transactions are prohibited when transacting both directly and indirectly with a CRL entity, and are not permitted when ordinarily incident to a licensed transaction where excluded from the relevant OFAC general or specific license.
These restrictions are separate and distinct from the prohibitions on direct financial transactions that OFAC added to the CACR in November 2017. The amendments will be published in the Federal Register on October 27, 2020, and will be effective on November 26, 2020, after a 30-day implementation period.
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