Venezuela-related sanctions by the United States Department of the Treasury - update VII

01.10.2019

Note: This Announcement, first published on 4 February 2019 and updated several times, has been updated again to give further information. The changes have been highlighted.

Clearstream Banking1 refers to the publications made by the United States Department of the Treasury on 30 September 2019 with regards to Venezuela.

Clearstream Banking reminds customers of the requirement to comply, and ensure compliance by any of the customer’s underlying clients, with any applicable law or regulation.

Customers are additionally requested to note the following operational requirements:  

Instructions to receive securities covered by General License 3G

When instructing the receipt of any of securities covered by General License 3G, customers must add the following new representation into the narrative field of their instruction (for example, field :70E: of the MT54x instruction):
“We represent: this instruction is covered by OFAC General License 3G; is ordinarily incident and necessary to transfer or divest, or to facilitate the transfer of the securities to a non-U.S. person; no SDN is involved; the ultimate recipient of the securities is neither a U.S. person nor an SDN or SDN equivalent.”

Note: Section (c) of GL 3G authorises transactions and activities that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of financial contracts or other agreements that were entered into prior to 16:00 Eastern Standard time on 1 February 2019, involving or linked to GL 3G bonds. This authorisation is valid until 00:01 Eastern Daylight Time on 31 March 2019.

Instructions to receive securities covered by General License 9F

When instructing the receipt of any of securities covered by General License 9F, customers must add the following new representation into the narrative field of their instruction (for example, field :70E: of the MT54x instruction):

“We represent: this instruction is covered by OFAC General License 9F; is ordinarily incident and necessary to transfer or divest, or to facilitate the transfer of the securities to a non-U.S. person; no SDN is involved; the ultimate recipient of the securities is neither a U.S. person nor an SDN or SDN equivalent.”

Note: Section (d) of GL 9F authorises transactions and activities that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of financial contracts or other agreements that were entered into prior to 16:00 Eastern Standard Time on 28 January 2019, involving or linked to PDVSA securities. This authorisation is valid until 00:01 Eastern Daylight Time on 31 March 2020.

Instructions to deliver to the domestic market securities covered by General License 3G and General License 9F

For domestic market settlement, the customer delivering securities to the domestic market must either provide the same representation, or alternatively, represent that the instruction relates to an on-exchange transaction and the customer has no information in their possession leading it to know or to have reason to know that the ultimate buyer is a U.S. person. 

Note: If for some reason it is not possible to add the representation to the narrative field of the instruction, we require a separate authorised communication which must provide the Transaction Reference(s) to allow reconciliation of the representation back to each instruction.

Further information

For further information, customers may contact Clearstream Banking Client Services or their Relationship Officer.

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1. Clearstream Banking refers collectively to Clearstream Banking S.A., registered office at 42, avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg, and registered with the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register under number B-9248, and Clearstream Banking AG (for Clearstream Banking AG customers using Creation Accounts), registered office at 61, Mergenthalerallee, 65760 Eschborn, Germany and registered in Register B of the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main, Germany under number HRB 7500.