U.S. fines insurance firms for violating Cuba embargo

Two insurance companies fined by the U.S. government agreed to pay tens of thousands of dollars for allegedly violating the embargo/blockade on Cuba, Prensa Latina (PL) news agency reported on Tuesday.

The Treasury Department said in a press release that its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) reached separate agreements with the Allianz Global Risks U.S. Insurance Company and the Swiss Chubb Limited “to liquidate their possible civil liability” for “apparent violations” of the Cuban Assets Control Regulation (CACR).

The first company, a Chicago-based property damage insurer, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany’s Allianz SE, will pay $170,535 for “6,474 apparent violations.”

According to the U.S. government, AGR US operates AGR Canada as a branch in Toronto, which would have managed travel insurance policies from August 2010 to January 2015, including occasional coverage related to visits by Canadians to Cuba, PL points out.

Meanwhile, Chubb Limited, the legal entity successor of the former ACE Limited, a Swiss firm that provided insurance and reinsurance services for commercial and individual clients, will have to pay $66,212 for “20,291 apparent violations of the CACR.”

This company, based in the United Kingdom, would have processed at least 20,291 transactions for a total of $367,847 in alleged violations of that regulation from January 2010 to December 2014, the Treasury Department said.

“The apparent violations appear to have been caused by ACE’s misunderstanding about the applicability of U.S. sanctions against Cuba with respect to this activity,” says the official press release.

In this way, both companies join other international institutions fined during 2019, among them the British Standard Chartered Bank, Expedia Group and General Electric, for violations of Washington’s over six-decade-old embargo on the island, despite most of the international community’s opposition.

Source: On Cuba News