BIS Imposes $120,000 Penalty on Medical Device Company's Regional Sales Manager for Involvement in Unlicensed Exports to Iran
In its charging letter, BIS claimed that ZOLL's regional sales manager, who was based in Athens, Greece, committed 16 violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Specifically, BIS alleged that the sales manager sold the defibrillators on behalf of ZOLL when he knew or had reason to know that they would be exported from the U.S. to Iran without the required U.S. Government authorization. BIS also claimed that he made false statements on the Shipper’s Export Declarations (SEDs) by stating that the country of ultimate destination for the defibrillators was South Africa and by misstating the identify of the ultimate consignees. BIS also charged that the sales manager violated the EAR by falsely stating that the exports of defibrillators to Iran qualified for export from the United States as NLR (“No License Required”) when, in fact, an export license was required from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to export these medical devices to Iran.
In addition to having to pay the $120,000 civil penalty, the former regional sales manager will be prohibited from participating in any transactions involving the export of goods from the U.S. for a period of five years. The five year denial of export privileges may be reduced if the monetary penalty is paid to the U.S. Government in a timely manner and no further violations of the EAR are committed.
This is the fourth civil penalty imposed by BIS in connection with these shipments of unlicensed defibrillators to Iran. BIS recently imposed a $14,000 civil penalty on STAT Medical (Pty), Ltd., the South African company involved in this shipment. In August 2005, BIS assessed an $82,500 civil penalty on U.S.-based ZOLL Medical Corporation as a result of its participation in exporting the defibrillators to Iran and in October 2005 BIS levied an $8,000 civil penalty on the U.S. freight forwarder that was involved in this transaction.
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
