On April 5, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the D.C. District Court's rejection of a multimillion dollar settlement agreement between the DOJ and Fokker Services B.V. stemming from alleged sanctions violations. As we reported in June 2014 and February 2015, Fokker had agreed to pay $21 million as part of a global settlement agreement with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia regarding more than 1,100 alleged violations of the U.S. sanctions with Iran and Sudan. The settlement agreement was rejected by Judge Leon of the D.C. District Court, who called the penalty "grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Services' conduct in a post-9/11 world." Both Fokker and the DOJ argued that the rejection unduly interfered with the DOJ's prosecutorial discretion. In overruling the district court, the panel held that the "Judiciary generally lacks the authority to second-guess those Executive determinations, much less to impose its own charging preferences."
For additional information, see the D.C. Circuit's opinion and coverage in The Wall Street Journal, as well the February 2015 and June 2014 editions of Red Notice.
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