Having erred, US removes Ofer brothers from Iran trade blacklist

The U.S. State Department has lifted its sanctions on a conglomerate owned by the late Sammy and Yuli Ofer, the business magnate brothers who were two of Israel's richest men.

In a decision that coincided with the funeral of Yuli Ofer, who died on Sunday at the age of 87, the U.S. State Department announced that it would remove Ofer Holdings Group Ltd. from its blacklist of companies suspected of ignoring trade sanctions against Iran. Yuli's brother Sammy Ofer died in June at age 89, just one week after the State Department first announced punitive measures against the brothers' companies for alleged Iranian ties. But while Ofer Holdings Group has been removed from the blacklist, its subsidiary company, Singapore-based Tanker Pacific, remains blacklisted.

When publishing the blacklist in May, U.S. State Department acting deputy spokesman Mark Toner said, “We used due diligence in checking out these claims. And what we found is that Ofer Holdings Group is the parent of a company called Tanker Pacific, and that’s the company that actually sold this tanker to the Iranians. And the company and its subsidiary, frankly, have failed to do proper due diligence and to prevent this transaction.”

The Ofer Holdings Group responded by insisting that the incident, while embarrassing, was a misunderstanding. The conglomerate refuted the U.S. State Department's claim that it had sold an $8.65 million oil tanker to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, saying it had made the sale to a Dubai-registered shipping company and was unaware that the buyers were acting on behalf of Iranian companies.

Executives from the Ofer Group have spent the past few months working with U.S. State Department officials to clear the company's name. In a statement released Tuesday, the company said, “The U.S. State Department has taken an important action in regards to the Ofer Brothers Group. This action clears the name of the Ofer Holdings Group Ltd. Today’s formal clarification makes it clear that none of Ofer Holdings Group Ltd., its subsidiaries or any other Israeli entity is subject to sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act.”

Sammy and Yuli Ofer had a combined wealth of $10.3 billion and were included in Forbes magazine's “World's Richest People” list in 2010. Yuli Ofer was laid to rest Tuesday afternoon at the Moshav Bnei Zion cemetery in Ramat Hasharon. Sammy Ofer is buried in Tel Aviv's Trumpeldor Cemetery.