It is unusual to see a story where the National Basketball Association intersect with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. But that is the lot in life for the 7-foot-2 Hamed Haddadi, a back up center for the Memphis Grizzlies.
Since Mr. Haddadi is from Iran, he is apparently subject to the decades old trade embargo. As a result of Iran’s support for international terrorism and its aggressive actions against non-belligerent shipping in the Persian Gulf, President Reagan, on October 29, 1987, issued Executive Order 12613 imposing a new import embargo on Iranian-origin goods and services. Section 505 of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985 was utilized as the statutory authority for the embargo which gave rise to the Iranian Transactions Regulations, Title 31, Part 560 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.
International trade is not my area of expertise, but I assume that Mr. Haddadi fell into the category of “goods or services.”
See:
- Iranians in U.S. Find Something to Cheer About by Joel Millman for the Wall Street Journal
- NBA Gets an Iranian Idol – photo essay on WSJ.com
- Hamed Haddadi profile on NBA.com
- NBA Applies to OFAC for License Relating to Iranian Basketball Player by International Trade Law News
- OFAC’s Iran Sanctions