Sanctions practitioners routinely face three intertwined licensing problems: general licenses that overlap, authorizations that expire on hard deadlines, and the question of when a specific license is still required on top of a general one. Each reflects a core principle – an OFAC general license authorizes only what its text says, and nothing more.

Overlapping general licenses

A general license (GL) authorizes a category of transactions without any individual application to OFAC. Overlap arises when more than one GL could bear on the same transaction, and the practitioner must confirm which applies and whether each one’s conditions are satisfied.

The Russia program shows how GLs interlock. Russia-related GL 6D authorizes transactions related to the production, sale, transport, or provision of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices. It is notable because, unlike most agricultural/medical authorizations, it is designed principally to permit these dealings even where an otherwise-blocked person is involved – clearing the blocked-counterparty obstacle for humanitarian-type goods.

But GL 6D’s reach is bounded by its own paragraph (c), which excludes several things even for otherwise-covered goods: opening or maintaining a correspondent or payable-through account for any entity subject to Directive 2 under E.O. 14024; any debit to a U.S.-institution account of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund, or the Russian Ministry of Finance; and transactions prohibited by E.O. 14066, 14068, or 14071 (subject to narrow carve-outs). So an authorized medical-device sale whose payment leg runs through a Directive 2 correspondent account is not cleared by GL 6D alone – that leg needs its own authorization. OFAC reinforces the point in its guidance: the agricultural/medical authorizations do not extend to prohibitions applied to persons sanctioned under other OFAC authorities.

The practice point is that general licenses are not additive by default. Each authorizes only what its text says, subject to its own conditions and exclusions. Where a transaction has two problematic features – a blocked counterparty and an excluded payment channel, or a second program’s designation – each feature needs its own authorization.

Expiring authorizations

Many general licenses, particularly wind-down authorizations, carry hard expiration dates and times. OFAC’s standard convention is 12:01 a.m. eastern on the stated date. Once that moment passes, the transaction reverts to prohibited unless another authorization applies.

The June 12, 2024 designation of Russia’s core financial-market infrastructure illustrates the mechanics, including how staggered the deadlines can be. Alongside blocking a group of entities, OFAC issued a cluster of wind-down GLs:

• GL 98 authorized wind-down of transactions involving the entities blocked that day, through 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 27, 2024.
• GL 99 and GL 100 authorized wind-down, divestment, and related debt/equity transactions involving MOEX, NCC, and NSD, through August 13, 2024.
• Those two were subsequently extended by GL 99A and GL 100A to October 12, 2024.

A payment authorized the day before a GL’s deadline is prohibited the day after; the authorization does not roll over. Because these deadlines do not move in lockstep – GL 98 expired more than two weeks before GLs 99 and 100 – practitioners track each separately.

The practice point is that wind-down GLs authorize the termination of pre-existing dealings, not new business. OFAC has been explicit that wind-down activities do not include the continued processing of funds transfers, securities trades, or other transactions involving a blocked person that were part of ongoing business prior to the imposition of sanctions, unless separately authorized.

When a specific license is still required “on top”

The clearest illustration of a specific license required on top of a general one comes from the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (TSRA) framework in the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), because the residual specific-license requirement is written into the licensing architecture itself rather than triggered by an exception.

Section 560.530 of the ITSR sets out a favorable general license for the export and reexport of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices to Iran. But the general license does not stand alone – its own text conditions the authorization. The export is authorized provided that, unless otherwise authorized by specific license, payment terms and financing are limited to, and consistent with, those authorized by § 560.532.

Section 560.532, in turn, generally authorizes only a defined menu of payment mechanisms: cash in advance; sales on open account (where the receivable is non-transferable); financing by non-U.S., non-Iranian third-country financial institutions (which U.S. institutions may confirm or advise); or a letter of credit issued by an Iranian financial institution whose property is not blocked. A practitioner who needs payment or financing terms outside that menu is not covered by the general license – and a specific license is required on top of the general authorization that already covers the goods.

The same structure recurs across the agricultural/medical provisions. Under § 560.533, brokering is authorized only where the underlying sale is itself authorized, either by a one-year specific license under § 560.530(a)(1)(i) or by one of the general licenses in § 560.530(a)(2), (a)(3), or (a)(4); brokering by U.S. persons on behalf of non-U.S., non-Iranian persons may be permitted only by case-by-case specific license. Sections 560.530, 560.532, and 560.533 are meant to be read together: one governs the export, one the payment and financing, one the brokering.

A separate dimension is cross-agency. An OFAC authorization does not resolve a licensing requirement administered by another federal agency. OFAC says so in the licenses themselves – the note to Russia-related GL 25D, for instance, states that nothing in the general license relieves any person from compliance with the export, reexport, and transfer licensing requirements maintained by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security under the Export Administration Regulations. An OFAC GL and a BIS/EAR authorization are distinct; satisfying one does not satisfy the other.

The practice point is that a general license never obligates OFAC to grant a related specific license. OFAC evaluates specific-license applications case-by-case against the relevant program’s stated licensing policy.

The common thread

All three problems reduce to the same discipline: read the general license against the specific transaction, feature by feature. Identify every prohibited element – the counterparty, the goods, the payment channel, the timing, the agency whose rules are implicated – and confirm that some authorization covers each one. A general license that resolves one obstacle does not resolve the others, its authorization ends when its text says it ends, and where the license’s own terms carve out a category, the specific-license process is the path.

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Sources: 31 CFR §§ 560.530, 560.532, 560.533 (ITSR); Russia-related General Licenses 6D, 8J, 25D, 98, 99, 100 (89 FR 65994, Aug. 14, 2024) and 99A/100A; OFAC Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions FAQ topic page.