A US-based unit and French affiliate of Ansell Ltd. have agreed to settle claims they violated US export controls by arranging to ship thousands of industrial-strength gloves to Iran without authorization, the US Department of Commerce said Friday.
New Jersey-based Ansell Protective Products Inc. and France-based Comasec SAS agreed to pay civil penalties to resolve an investigation by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which found that the companies violated export control regulations by attempting to ship certain industrial-strength nitrile gloves to a customer in Iran.
“No US government authorization was sought or obtained for these transactions even though Comasec knew or had reason to know that Iran was the ultimate destination for the items,” Commerce said Friday.
According to separate orders issued by Commerce, Ansell and Comasec would be assessed civil penalties of $190,000, which must be paid within 30 days. The settlement agreement also prohibits Ansell and Comasec from taking any actions or making public statements “denying the allegations” in Commerce’s orders.
In its investigation, the agency found fault with four allegedly unauthorized transactions in 2008 and 2009 involving Comasec and an Ansell predecessor company called Marigold Industrial USA Inc., which was merged into Ansell in July 2013, according to Commerce.
On two occasions in June and September of 2008, Marigold exported to Iran a total of about 35,000 pairs of gloves — worth approximately $43,500 — that were subject to US export controls, Commerce said. The transactions first involved a sale of the goods to Comasec, which in turn used them to fill orders placed by Tehran-based Zhabeh Safety Co. Commerce said the gloves were shipped initially to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, “for transshipment to Zhabeh in Iran.”
Separately, on two other occasions, both in March 2009, Marigold and Comasec worked together in an attempt to evade US export controls, Commerce alleged. Specifically, the companies tried to skirt the long-standing US trade embargo against Iran by shipping some 30,000 pairs of industrial-strength gloves, worth a little more than $30,000, to the same Iranian company, Zhabeh, according to Commerce.
To complete those 2009 transactions, Marigold and Comasec allegedly devised a plan — borne out in emails, turned up in the investigation, between Marigold’s director of business development and Comasec’s export manager — to address shipments to a “middle company” in Dubai, which would then re-export the gloves to Iran, according to Commerce.
“Emails among Comasec and Ansell/Marigold show that both entities knew about the US embargo against Iran and that exports of the items to Iran were prohibited under US law,” Commerce said.
Those 2009 transactions, however, “were thwarted” by US Customs and Border Protection and Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which intercepted the shipments before they left the US, according to Commerce.
Ansell spokesman Frank Mantero on Tuesday confirmed the settlement with Commerce and stressed that the Ansell entities were involved “solely in their capacity as successors to the Comasec business.”
“All of the alleged violations occurred in 2008 and 2009, several years prior to Ansell’s purchase of the Comasec business, and took place without any involvement or knowledge by the Ansell organization,” Mantero said in a statement. “This settlement concludes all BIS investigations with Ansell.”
Source: Law360
Published: 04 Feb 2014