ExxonMobil sues US over charge of violation of sanctions

MOSCOW, Jul 21 (PRIME) -- ExxonMobil has initiated a legal challenge of the U.S. Treasury Department’s a U.S. $2 million fine and ruling that it violated the anti-Russian sanctions in 2014 it said in a statement late on Thursday soon after the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said by signing documents with Rosneft was violation of the sanctions.

“ExxonMobil said today it has launched a legal challenge to a finding by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that it violated U.S. sanctions against Russia in 2014 when the company followed authoritative and specific guidance from the Obama administration that OFAC retroactively changed a year later,” the company said.

“OFAC seeks to retroactively enforce a new interpretation of an executive order that is inconsistent with the explicit and unambiguous guidance from the White House and Treasury issued before the relevant conduct and still publicly available today,” ExxonMobil said in a filing to the U.S. District Court.

“OFAC’s action is fundamentally unfair and constitutes a denial of due process under the Constitution and violates the Administrative Procedure Act because market participants, including ExxonMobil, did not have notice of the interpretation OFAC now seeks to retroactively enforce,” the company said.

According to Rosneft, its CEO Igor Sechin signed an agreement with ExxonMobil Development President Neil Duffin on May 14–23, 2014 to prolong a strategic agreement on a Far Eastern LNG liquefied natural gas project. Sechin also signed an agreement with ExxonMobil Russia’s President Glenn Waller on the Sakhalin-1 consortium providing services for drilling, production, transportation, and loading of hydrocarbons produced by the project.

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