In furtherance of its foreign policy objectives, the U.S. has for many years administered embargoes and economic sanctions against certain target countries (such as Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Yugoslavia) or non-governmental groups (such as UNITA in Angola, the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, as well as terrorists and narcotics traffickers).

Many of these sanctions programs, which are administered chiefly by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC), prohibit a very wide range of activities by "persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction," a term which OFAC interprets in ways that give extraterritorial effect to some prohibitions. These sanctions (including asset freezes, bans on imports and exports and broad restrictions against any involvement in transactions with target countries or foreign nationals) present compliance challenges to companies operating in the global market.

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In helping businesses manage these challenges, attorneys at Powell Goldstein have:

• Advised numerous companies with foreign-based subsidiaries and branches on the scope, meaning and application of sanctions regimes
• Assisted Glaxo Wellcome in creating a global compliance strategy to deal with embargo and sanction laws and regulations
• Sought and obtained OFAC licenses for companies seeking to ship goods to target countries for humanitarian purposes
• Presented customized in-house training programs on economic sanctions to several companies