The move is the latest attempt by the United States to hit Iran financially, even as it works to dial down the military tensions between Iran and Israel following recent tit-for-tat attacks.
Bangkok-headquartered SCG Plastics, part of the Siam Cement Group, agreed to pay the fine to settle 467 apparent sanctions violations, the Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday.
These violations caused US financial institutions to process US$291 million in wire transfers between 2017 and 2018 for a company jointly owned by the National Petrochemical Company of Iran, it added.
“SCG Plastics willfully engaged in a persistent, multi-year pattern of conduct to conceal the fact that the HDPE that it sold was of Iranian origin,” the statement read, referring to the acronym for a strong resin used to make shampoo bottles and food containers.
This, the Treasury Department said, demonstrated “an intent to evade detection by financial institutions processing the transactions and avoid measures these institutions would likely have taken to comply with U.S. law.”
"As a result of these transactions, significant economic benefits were conferred to Iran’s petrochemical sector, a major source of revenue generation for the Iranian regime," the statement said.*
SCG Plastics purchased and resold 60% of Mehr’s output of Iranian-origin HDPE to its customers from 2009 to July 2018, with a year-long pause from 2013 to 2014, the settlement agreement said.
“SCG Plastics employed certain shipping and documentation practices that obfuscated the product’s Iranian origin and Iranian parties’ involvement,” it said.
The announcement came a day after the United States and Britain announced widespread sanctions against Iran’s military drone program in response to Tehran’s large-scale attack against Israel last weekend, which involved more than 300 drones and missiles.
That attack came in response to a reported Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
While most of the Iranian missiles and drones launched at Israel were shot down, and little damage was caused, Israeli officials vowed a response.
That appeared to have come overnight on Thursday, with US media that Israel had carried out direct strikes on sites in Iran.
Israeli officials have made no public comment on the reports, and Iranian officials have sought to play down its significance.
*For more information, visit the web notice and settlement agreement.