Sanctions 101: How to Comply With Them (Part Three of Three)

The need to have policies and procedures to ensure compliance with government-imposed sanctions is nothing new for private fund managers. In fact, according to a 2016 ACA Group (ACA) compliance survey of alternative fund managers, 89 percent of respondents conduct checks of investors or separate account clients against lists of sanctioned individuals and entities maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury Department. In light of the latest sanctions against Russia, however, OFAC and FinCEN have both issued alerts, advising financial institutions to be vigilant about potential Russian sanctions evasion. Therefore, it would be prudent for private fund managers to review their sanctions compliance policies and procedures now to ensure they are up to snuff – and for managers without a sanctions compliance regime to implement one. This final article in a three-part series explores what managers should do to ensure they comply with sanctions and have sufficient protections in their fund documents. The first article explained how sanctions regimes work, and the second article discussed how sanctions can impact a private fund manager’s investors and investments. For more results from the ACA survey, see our two-part series: “SEC Exams; Compliance Staffing and Budgeting; Annual and Ongoing Compliance Reviews; and AML/Sanctions Compliance” (Jan. 19, 2017); and “Custody; Fee Policies and Arrangements; Safeguarding of Assets; and Personal Trading” (Feb. 2, 2017).

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