LatinNews Daily - 28 June 2021

Venezuela:  On 17 June, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) issued a general licence on Venezuela, making additional coronavirus (Covid-19) related transactions and activities exempt from imposed economic sanctions. These include “the delivery of face masks, ventilators and oxygen tanks, vaccines and the production of vaccines, Covid-19 tests, air filtration systems, and Covid-19-related field hospitals, among others”. This licence responds to the US government’s efforts to ensure that multilateral financial and economic sanctions do not unduly hinder responses to the pandemic worldwide. The licence specifically authorises transactions from three Venezuelan banks, namely Venezuela’s central bank (BCV) and state-owned banks Banco de Venezuela, and Banco Bicentenario del Pueblo. Transactions involving Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), Venezuela’s economic and social development bank (Bandes), and Banco Bandes Uruguay SA, a branch of Bandes, remain unauthorised under the new licence. The licence also does not authorise exportation or re-exportation of goods, technology or services to Venezuelan military, intelligence, or law enforcement purchasers or importers. 

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