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Title I — Strengthening existing sanctions with respect to Iran to account for all sanctionable activity, including human rights abuses

H.R. 7321 · 115th Congress · Dec 17, 2018 · Lineage

I Strengthening existing sanctions with respect to Iran to account for all sanctionable activity, including human rights abuses

Sec. 101 Findings

Congress finds the following:
(1)
On November 5, 2018, the Secretary of the Treasury for the first time sanctioned Iranian banks for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of the human rights abuses of the Government of Iran, including—
(A)
Ghavamin Bank, for providing services to the Law Enforcement Forces of Iran, which had been designated for complicity “in serious human rights abuses in Iran, including operating detention centers where detained protestors were deprived of basic needs such as medical care”; and
(B)
Ayandeh Bank, for providing services to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Iran’s state-media apparatus, which had been designated for “restricting or denying the free flow of information to or from the Iranian people … [and] was implicated in censoring multiple media outlets and airing forced confessions from political detainees”.
(2)
Section 220 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (22 U.S.C. 8726) authorizes the imposition of sanctions with respect to persons who knowingly and directly provide specialized financial messaging services to, or knowingly enable or facilitate direct or indirect access to such messaging services for, the Central Bank of Iran or certain other sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.

Sec. 102 Expansion of prohibitions on correspondent accounts or payable-through accounts for foreign financial institutions that facilitate transactions or provide financial services for certain Iranian financial institutions

Section 104(c)(2)(E) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)) is amended—
(1)
in clause (i), by striking “or” at the end;
(2)
in clause (ii)(II), by striking the period at the end and inserting “; or”; and
(3)
by adding at the end the following:

“(iii) an Iranian financial institution included on the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury.”

Sec. 103 Expansion of sanctions with respect to persons knowingly and directly providing specialized financial messaging services to, or enabling or facilitating direct or indirect access to such messaging services for, the Central Bank of Iran, other designated Iranian banks, or Iranian financial institutions removed from the list of specially designated persons pursuant to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

(a)
In general— Section 220 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (22 U.S.C. 8726) is amended—
(1)
in the section header, by striking “authorization of”;
(2)
in subsection (b)—
(A)
in paragraph (1)—
(i)
in subparagraph (A), by striking “or a financial institution described in section 104(c)(2)(E)(ii) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)(ii))” and inserting “, a financial institution described in clause (ii) or (iii) of section 104(c)(2)(E) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)), or a financial institution that was removed from the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury pursuant to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”; and
(ii)
in subparagraph (B), by striking “that section” and inserting “subparagraph (A)”; and
(B)
in paragraph (2), by striking “or a financial institution described in section 104(c)(2)(E)(ii) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)(ii))” and inserting “, a financial institution described in clause (ii) or (iii) of section 104(c)(2)(E) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)), or a financial institution that was removed from the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury pursuant to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”;
(3)
in subsection (c)—
(A)
in the subsection header, by striking “Authorization of imposition” and inserting “Imposition”;
(B)
in paragraph (1)—
(i)
by striking “the date that is 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act” and inserting “the date of the enactment of the Blocking Iran Illicit Finance Act”;
(ii)
by striking “or a financial institution described in paragraph (2)(E)(ii) of section 104(c) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c))” and inserting “, a financial institution described in clause (ii) or (iii) of paragraph (2)(E) of section 104(c) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)), or a financial institution that was removed from the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury pursuant to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”; and
(iii)
by striking “the President may” and inserting “the President shall”; and
(C)
in paragraph (2)—
(i)
in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking “section 104(c)(2)(E)(ii) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)(ii))” and inserting “that paragraph”; and
(ii)
in subparagraph (A)(ii)(I), by striking “section 104(c)(2)(E)(ii) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (22 U.S.C. 8513(c)(2)(E)(ii))” and inserting “paragraph (1)”; and
(4)
by adding at the end the following:

“(e) Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action defined—In this section, the term Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action means the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed to at Vienna on July 14, 2015, by Iran and by France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and all implementing materials and agreements related to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.”

(b)
Clerical amendment— The table of contents for the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 is amended by striking the item relating to section 220 and inserting the following: